GEO Summit, Side Event on Cold Regions, 13 Jan 2014 Global Terrestrial Network for Glacier: the importance of long-term glacier observations Michael Zemp Director WGMS, PD Dr. sc. nat. World Glacier Monitoring Service Department of Geography, University of Zurich Switzerland

1894: initiation of internationally coordinated glacier monitoring climate induced glacier changes and related impacts Visualizations by P. Rastner today Photos by Focus Online and J. Alean. Photos by J. Alean. Thames Barrier. Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

need for independent and authoritative data and information

by H. Machguth ablation area accumulation area equilibrium line outlines of observational network Photos: H. Machguth need for process understanding Winkler (2008)

Glacier change observations in length, area, volume, and mass < 2005 obs. cover Zemp et al. (in prep) need for (long-term) observation programmes

global terrestrial network of glaciers GTN-G

WGMS (2013) 2013 In 2012/13, some Alpine glaciers showed a  minor mass gain but continued frontal retreat  mainly due to a long and partially snowy winter  supported by some summer snow fall events. did swiss glaciers really grow last year?

GTN-G: serving the community with glacier observations ¦ ¦ ¦ More than a century of internationally coordinated glacier monitoring has resulted in an unprecedented dataset on glacier distribution and changes. Major drawback: lack of resources for long-term monitoring

Data sources: WGMS 2011 intro distribution changes alps conclusions

Data sources: WGMS intro distribution changes alps conclusions

Data sources: WGMS, Jacob et al The Alps intro distribution changes alps conclusions

Elevation changes from ICESat Gardner et al. (2013) intro distribution changes alps conclusions

Kääb et al. (2013) intro distribution changes alps conclusions Elevation changes from ICESat

Figure based on data from WGMS (2013) intro distribution changes alps conclusions