Randolph Glacier Inventory: Global Glacier Outlines

The Randolph Glacier Inventory provides a global snapshot of glacier outlines, offering a single polygon for each glacier. It is produced by the International Association of Cryospheric Sciences in coordination with the GLIMS initiative, with contributions from the glaciological community. Data is packaged globally and by region, with annual updates.

Use Cases

• Estimating regional glacier volumes using hypsometric data (CSV files).
• Analyzing cryospheric responses to climatic forcing using global glacier outlines (Shapefiles).
• Conducting regional-scale studies of glacier elevation change using gridded auxiliary data (GeoTIFFs).
• Mapping global glacier distribution based on the Global Terrestrial Network for Glaciers regions.

Strengths

• Provides a globally consistent set of glacier outlines, synthesized from community contributions.
• Includes multiple data formats: Shapefiles for outlines, CSV for hypsometry, and GeoTIFFs for gridded data.
• Maintained with approximately annual updates by an authoritative international working group (IACS).

Limitations

• Sources conflict on the last updated date: one platform reports 2026-03-12, another reports 2010-12-31.
• Not suitable for measuring glacier-by-glacier rates of area change, as it is a snapshot inventory.
• Specific row counts, column names, and dataset size are not provided across all platforms.

Provenance

Source

Working Group on the Randolph Glacier Inventory and Infrastructure for Glacier Monitoring, International Association of Cryospheric Sciences (IACS).

Collection Method

Glacier mapping data contributed from the glaciological community to GLIMS and RGI.

Time Range

Snapshot inventory; temporal coverage not explicitly stated.

Freshness

2026-03-12

Geography

Global, packaged by regions based on the Global Terrestrial Network for Glaciers.