TermPicks: Greenland Glacier Terminus Traces and Retreat Data

1972–2019 temporal coverage for marine-terminating glacier terminus positions in Greenland. The dataset combines manually traced terminus lines (TermPicks) with an automated deep learning extraction (CALFIN), providing a century-scale record for studying glacier retreat. It includes shapefiles for terminus traces and IDs, CSV files for centerline retreat calculations, and a KMZ file for visualizing Landsat coverage.

Use Cases

• Analyzing glacier retreat rates based on the provided centerline retreat CSV files.
• Training or validating automated calving front detection algorithms using the combined TermPicks and CALFIN terminus traces.
• Mapping historical terminus positions for specific glaciers using the shapefile ID schema and Landsat coverage figures.
• Studying long-term changes in Greenland's marine-terminating glaciers over the 1972–2019 period.

Strengths

• Combines manual (TermPicks) and automated (CALFIN) terminus delineation methods, offering a dual-source validation approach.
• Covers a long temporal span (1972–2019) for analyzing multi-decadal glacier change.
• Includes multiple corrected versions (V2, V3) that address specific data issues like missing center points and indexing errors.

Limitations

• Key metadata such as row count, file size, and specific column names are not provided in any source.
• The exact date of the last update is unknown, limiting assessment of data freshness.
• Relies on inferred data types (geospatial, tabular) from described file formats rather than explicit column listings.

Provenance

Source

Sophie Goliber, The University of Texas at Austin; incorporates data from Cheng et al. (2021) CALFIN dataset.

Collection Method

Likely derived from manual interpretation and automated deep learning extraction of satellite imagery (e.g., Landsat).

Time Range

1972–2019

Geography

Greenland (marine-terminating glaciers)