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8 changes: 4 additions & 4 deletions 01_introduction.html
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Expand Up @@ -438,7 +438,7 @@ <h2>What is the RGI?<a class="headerlink" href="#what-is-the-rgi" title="Permali
</section>
<section id="who-develops-and-hosts-the-rgi">
<h2>Who develops and hosts the RGI?<a class="headerlink" href="#who-develops-and-hosts-the-rgi" title="Permalink to this headline">#</a></h2>
<p>The RGI has been developed in an international community-driven effort of glaciologists starting in 2010. The inventory was named after “Randolph”, a town in New Hampshire, USA, where the team met for one of their meetings <span id="id1">[<a class="reference internal" href="07_references.html#id61" title="W. Tad Pfeffer, Anthony a. Arendt, Andrew Bliss, Tobias Bolch, J. Graham Cogley, Alex S. Gardner, Jon-Ove Hagen, Regine Hock, Georg Kaser, Christian Kienholz, Evan S. Miles, Geir Moholdt, Nico Mölg, Frank Paul, Valentina Radić, Philipp Rastner, Bruce H. Raup, Justin Rich, and Martin J. Sharp. The Randolph Glacier Inventory: a globally complete inventory of glaciers. Journal of Glaciology, 60(221):537–552, jul 2014. doi:10.3189/2014JoG13J176.">Pfeffer <em>et al.</em>, 2014</a>]</span>. In 2014 development of the RGI became the responsibility of the <a class="reference external" href="https://cryosphericsciences.org/activities/wg-rgi/">Working Group on the Randolph Glacier Inventory and Infrastructure for Glacier Monitoring</a>, which operated under the International Association of Cryospheric Sciences (<a class="reference external" href="https://cryosphericsciences.org">IACS</a>). In 2019, a new Working Group was established to build upon the previous achievements and further expand its objectives: the <a class="reference external" href="https://cryosphericsciences.org/activities/working-groups/rgi-working-group/">IACS Working Group on the Randolph Glacier Inventory (RGI) and its role in future glacier monitoring and GLIMS</a>.</p>
<p>The RGI has been developed in an international community-driven effort of glaciologists starting in 2010. The inventory was named after “Randolph”, a town in New Hampshire, USA, where the team met for one of their meetings <span id="id1">[<a class="reference internal" href="07_references.html#id87" title="W. Tad Pfeffer, Anthony a. Arendt, Andrew Bliss, Tobias Bolch, J. Graham Cogley, Alex S. Gardner, Jon-Ove Hagen, Regine Hock, Georg Kaser, Christian Kienholz, Evan S. Miles, Geir Moholdt, Nico Mölg, Frank Paul, Valentina Radić, Philipp Rastner, Bruce H. Raup, Justin Rich, and Martin J. Sharp. The Randolph Glacier Inventory: a globally complete inventory of glaciers. Journal of Glaciology, 60(221):537–552, jul 2014. doi:10.3189/2014JoG13J176.">Pfeffer <em>et al.</em>, 2014</a>]</span>. In 2014 development of the RGI became the responsibility of the <a class="reference external" href="https://cryosphericsciences.org/activities/wg-rgi/">Working Group on the Randolph Glacier Inventory and Infrastructure for Glacier Monitoring</a>, which operated under the International Association of Cryospheric Sciences (<a class="reference external" href="https://cryosphericsciences.org">IACS</a>). In 2019, a new Working Group was established to build upon the previous achievements and further expand its objectives: the <a class="reference external" href="https://cryosphericsciences.org/activities/working-groups/rgi-working-group/">IACS Working Group on the Randolph Glacier Inventory (RGI) and its role in future glacier monitoring and GLIMS</a>.</p>
<p>The RGI datasets are listed on <a class="reference external" href="https://www.glims.org/RGI">glims.org</a>, and the RGI files can be downloaded through the <a class="reference external" href="https://nsidc.org/data/nsidc-0770">data portal</a> at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (<a class="reference external" href="https://nsidc.org">NSIDC</a>), which is the host for GLIMS.</p>
</section>
<section id="data-distribution-policy">
Expand All @@ -459,8 +459,8 @@ <h2>Data distribution policy<a class="headerlink" href="#data-distribution-polic
<p><strong>Earlier versions</strong></p>
<p>The RGI 6.0 data set is referenced as: <em>RGI Consortium, 2017. Randolph Glacier Inventory - A Dataset of Global Glacier Outlines, Version 6. Boulder, Colorado USA. NSIDC: National Snow and Ice Data Center. doi: <a class="reference external" href="https://doi.org/10.7265/4m1f-gd79">https://doi.org/10.7265/4m1f-gd79</a>.</em></p>
<p>Earlier versions of the user guide (then called Technical Report) are referenced as: “RGI Consortium (2017), Randolph Glacier Inventory – A Dataset of Global Glacier Outlines: Version 6.0. GLIMS Technical Report” and earlier versions as “Arendt et al.” (various dates).</p>
<p>A detailed scientific description of the RGI version 3.2 is given by <span id="id2">Pfeffer <em>et al.</em> [<a class="reference internal" href="07_references.html#id61" title="W. Tad Pfeffer, Anthony a. Arendt, Andrew Bliss, Tobias Bolch, J. Graham Cogley, Alex S. Gardner, Jon-Ove Hagen, Regine Hock, Georg Kaser, Christian Kienholz, Evan S. Miles, Geir Moholdt, Nico Mölg, Frank Paul, Valentina Radić, Philipp Rastner, Bruce H. Raup, Justin Rich, and Martin J. Sharp. The Randolph Glacier Inventory: a globally complete inventory of glaciers. Journal of Glaciology, 60(221):537–552, jul 2014. doi:10.3189/2014JoG13J176.">2014</a>]</span>.</p>
<p>The <strong>RGI logo</strong> and its variants can be downloaded <a class="reference internal" href="products/logos.html"><span class="doc std std-doc">here</span></a>.</p>
<p>A detailed scientific description of the RGI version 3.2 is given by <span id="id2">Pfeffer <em>et al.</em> [<a class="reference internal" href="07_references.html#id87" title="W. Tad Pfeffer, Anthony a. Arendt, Andrew Bliss, Tobias Bolch, J. Graham Cogley, Alex S. Gardner, Jon-Ove Hagen, Regine Hock, Georg Kaser, Christian Kienholz, Evan S. Miles, Geir Moholdt, Nico Mölg, Frank Paul, Valentina Radić, Philipp Rastner, Bruce H. Raup, Justin Rich, and Martin J. Sharp. The Randolph Glacier Inventory: a globally complete inventory of glaciers. Journal of Glaciology, 60(221):537–552, jul 2014. doi:10.3189/2014JoG13J176.">2014</a>]</span>.</p>
<p>The <strong>RGI logo</strong> and its variants can be downloaded <a class="reference internal" href="appendix/contribute.html#rgi-logo"><span class="std std-ref">here</span></a>.</p>
</section>
<section id="how-to-name-the-rgi-versions">
<h2>How to name the RGI versions?<a class="headerlink" href="#how-to-name-the-rgi-versions" title="Permalink to this headline">#</a></h2>
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -490,7 +490,7 @@ <h2>Version history<a class="headerlink" href="#version-history" title="Permalin
<p><strong>Version 6.0</strong>, released in July 2017, has improved coverage of the conterminous US (regions 02-05 and 02-06), Scandinavia (region 08) and Iran (region 12-2). In Scandinavia several hundred smaller glaciers have been added and most glaciers now have exact dates. The flag attributes <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">RGIFlag</span></code> and <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">GlacType</span></code> were reorganized. Surging codes have been added from Sevestre and Benn (2015).</p>
<p><strong>Version 5.0</strong>, released in July 2015, had new coverage of most of Asia (RGI regions 10, 13, 14 and 15), with some improved outlines elsewhere. Linkages to the Fluctuations of Glaciers database of the World Glacier Monitoring Service were provided for some glaciers with mass-balance measurements.</p>
<p><strong>Version 4.0</strong> was released in December 2014. The most significant enhancement was the addition of topographic and hypsometric attributes for nearly all glaciers. These new attributes are described in detail below. Many glacier outlines were unchanged in version 4.0, but many more glaciers were assigned dates or date ranges, some names were added or corrected, and the inventory of Alaska was new. Remaining glacier complexes in Bolivia were subdivided, and nominal glaciers were added to correct omissions in the Greater Caucasus. A global grid of glacierized area with 0.5-degree resolution was added.</p>
<p><strong>Version 3.0</strong> was an interim release representing the RGI as of 7 April 2013. It was the basis for the work of <span id="id3">Gardner <em>et al.</em> [<a class="reference internal" href="07_references.html#id85" title="Alex S. Gardner, Geir Moholdt, J Graham Cogley, Bert Wouters, Anthony a Arendt, John Wahr, Etienne Berthier, Regine Hock, W Tad Pfeffer, Georg Kaser, Stefan R M Ligtenberg, Tobias Bolch, Martin J Sharp, Jon Ove Hagen, Michiel R van den Broeke, and Frank Paul. A Reconciled Estimate of Glacier Contributions to Sea Level Rise: 2003 to 2009. Science., 340(6134):852–857, may 2013. doi:10.1126/science.1234532.">2013</a>]</span>. The main improvements included identification of all tidewater basins, and separation of glacier complexes into glaciers in nearly all regions. <strong>Version 3.2</strong>, released in August 2013, included additional separation of glacier complexes into glaciers, and repairs of some geometry errors. It is the basis for the scientific description and analysis of the RGI by <span id="id4">Pfeffer <em>et al.</em> [<a class="reference internal" href="07_references.html#id61" title="W. Tad Pfeffer, Anthony a. Arendt, Andrew Bliss, Tobias Bolch, J. Graham Cogley, Alex S. Gardner, Jon-Ove Hagen, Regine Hock, Georg Kaser, Christian Kienholz, Evan S. Miles, Geir Moholdt, Nico Mölg, Frank Paul, Valentina Radić, Philipp Rastner, Bruce H. Raup, Justin Rich, and Martin J. Sharp. The Randolph Glacier Inventory: a globally complete inventory of glaciers. Journal of Glaciology, 60(221):537–552, jul 2014. doi:10.3189/2014JoG13J176.">2014</a>]</span>.</p>
<p><strong>Version 3.0</strong> was an interim release representing the RGI as of 7 April 2013. It was the basis for the work of <span id="id3">Gardner <em>et al.</em> [<a class="reference internal" href="07_references.html#id33" title="Alex S. Gardner, Geir Moholdt, J Graham Cogley, Bert Wouters, Anthony a Arendt, John Wahr, Etienne Berthier, Regine Hock, W Tad Pfeffer, Georg Kaser, Stefan R M Ligtenberg, Tobias Bolch, Martin J Sharp, Jon Ove Hagen, Michiel R van den Broeke, and Frank Paul. A Reconciled Estimate of Glacier Contributions to Sea Level Rise: 2003 to 2009. Science., 340(6134):852–857, may 2013. doi:10.1126/science.1234532.">2013</a>]</span>. The main improvements included identification of all tidewater basins, and separation of glacier complexes into glaciers in nearly all regions. <strong>Version 3.2</strong>, released in August 2013, included additional separation of glacier complexes into glaciers, and repairs of some geometry errors. It is the basis for the scientific description and analysis of the RGI by <span id="id4">Pfeffer <em>et al.</em> [<a class="reference internal" href="07_references.html#id87" title="W. Tad Pfeffer, Anthony a. Arendt, Andrew Bliss, Tobias Bolch, J. Graham Cogley, Alex S. Gardner, Jon-Ove Hagen, Regine Hock, Georg Kaser, Christian Kienholz, Evan S. Miles, Geir Moholdt, Nico Mölg, Frank Paul, Valentina Radić, Philipp Rastner, Bruce H. Raup, Justin Rich, and Martin J. Sharp. The Randolph Glacier Inventory: a globally complete inventory of glaciers. Journal of Glaciology, 60(221):537–552, jul 2014. doi:10.3189/2014JoG13J176.">2014</a>]</span>.</p>
<p><strong>Version 2.0</strong> also added shapefiles for its first-order and second-order regions.</p>
<p><strong>Version 1.0</strong> of the RGI was released in February 2012. It included a considerable number of unsubdivided ice bodies, which we refer to as glacier complexes, and a considerable number of nominal glaciers, which are glaciers for which only a location and an area are known; they are represented by circles of the appropriate area at the given location. An unofficial update of version 1.0 was provided in April 2012 to replace several regions that had topology errors and repeated polygons. Version 2.0, released in June 2012, eliminated a number of flaws and provided a uniform set of attributes for each glacier. Several outlines were improved, and a number of outlines were added in previously omitted regions.</p>
</section>
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4 changes: 2 additions & 2 deletions 02_regions_definition.html
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Expand Up @@ -435,12 +435,12 @@ <h1>RGI glacier regions<a class="headerlink" href="#rgi-glacier-regions" title="
</figure>
<div class="admonition-data-download admonition">
<p class="admonition-title">Data download</p>
<p><span class="xref myst">Download the RGI 7.0 region files</span>.</p>
<p><a class="reference external" href="https://doi.org/10.5067/f6jmovy5navz">Download the RGI 7.0 region files</a>.</p>
</div>
<p>First-order regions <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">10</span></code>, <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">19</span></code> and <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">20</span></code> straddle the 180th meridian, and so do the second-order regions <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">19-15</span></code> and <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">20-01</span></code>. For convenience of analysis in a cylindrical-equidistant coordinate system centered on longitude 0°, as in <a class="reference internal" href="#global-fig"><span class="std std-ref">Figure 1</span></a>, the region outlines of <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">10</span></code> and <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">19-15</span></code> appear in the accompanying shapefiles as two polygons, eastern and western.</p>
<section id="gtn-g-regions">
<h2>GTN-G regions<a class="headerlink" href="#gtn-g-regions" title="Permalink to this headline">#</a></h2>
<p>The region outlines have changed slightly between RGI versions, for example to avoid the splitting of glaciers between two regions, to make further analyses more convenient, or because previously not included glaciers were located outside existing region boundaries. For the sake of consistency between global glacier datasets a joint set of regions was recommended by the Global Terrestrial Network for Glaciers (GTN-G) Advisory Board, the Global Land Ice Measurements from Space initiative (GLIMS), the RGI Working Group of the International Association of Cryospheric Sciences (IACS), and the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS). These glacier regions were implemented first in RGI version 6.0 and are available <a class="reference external" href="https://www.gtn-g.ch/data_catalogue_glacreg">on the GTN-G website</a>. These region boundaries were slightly modified in RGI version 7.0 and changes also integrated in the GTN-G dataset <span id="id1">[<a class="reference internal" href="07_references.html#id23" title="GTN-G. GTN-G Glacier Regions. 2023. doi:10.5904/gtng-glacreg-2023-07.">GTN-G, 2023</a>]</span>.</p>
<p>The region outlines have changed slightly between RGI versions, for example to avoid the splitting of glaciers between two regions, to make further analyses more convenient, or because previously not included glaciers were located outside existing region boundaries. For the sake of consistency between global glacier datasets a joint set of regions was recommended by the Global Terrestrial Network for Glaciers (GTN-G) Advisory Board, the Global Land Ice Measurements from Space initiative (GLIMS), the RGI Working Group of the International Association of Cryospheric Sciences (IACS), and the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS). These glacier regions were implemented first in RGI version 6.0 and are available <a class="reference external" href="https://www.gtn-g.ch/data_catalogue_glacreg">on the GTN-G website</a>. These region boundaries were slightly modified in RGI version 7.0 and changes also integrated in the GTN-G dataset <span id="id1">[<a class="reference internal" href="07_references.html#id12" title="GTN-G. GTN-G Glacier Regions. 2023. doi:10.5904/gtng-glacreg-2023-07.">GTN-G, 2023</a>]</span>.</p>
</section>
<section id="changes-from-rgi-6-0-to-7-0">
<h2>Changes from RGI 6.0 to 7.0<a class="headerlink" href="#changes-from-rgi-6-0-to-7-0" title="Permalink to this headline">#</a></h2>
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2 changes: 1 addition & 1 deletion 04_revisions.html
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Expand Up @@ -490,7 +490,7 @@ <h2>Data and file format<a class="headerlink" href="#data-and-file-format" title
<span id="data-integrity"></span><h2>Quality control and data integrity<a class="headerlink" href="#quality-control-and-data-integrity" title="Permalink to this headline">#</a></h2>
<p>Since the RGI is a subset of GLIMS, all characteristics of GLIMS are inherited by the RGI, including any problems or inaccuracies present in the outlines. However, the RGI workflow incorporates several data integrity checks on the GLIMS data:</p>
<ol class="arabic simple">
<li><p><strong>Comparison with original datasets</strong>: Whenever possible, such as when access to the original inventories is available (e.g., GAMDAMv2, <span id="id1">Sakai [<a class="reference internal" href="07_references.html#id60" title="Akiko Sakai. Brief communication: Updated GAMDAM glacier inventory over high-mountain Asia. The Cryosphere, 13(7):2043–2049, jul 2019. doi:10.5194/tc-13-2043-2019.">2019</a>]</span>), the RGI dataset (and thus the associated GLIMS data) could be verified against the original dataset. This process helped to identify a few errors in the GLIMS data ingestion workflow. It served as a rough data integrity check.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Comparison with original datasets</strong>: Whenever possible, such as when access to the original inventories is available (e.g., GAMDAMv2, <span id="id1">Sakai [<a class="reference internal" href="07_references.html#id15" title="Akiko Sakai. Brief communication: Updated GAMDAM glacier inventory over high-mountain Asia. The Cryosphere, 13(7):2043–2049, jul 2019. doi:10.5194/tc-13-2043-2019.">2019</a>]</span>), the RGI dataset (and thus the associated GLIMS data) could be verified against the original dataset. This process helped to identify a few errors in the GLIMS data ingestion workflow. It served as a rough data integrity check.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Detection of duplicated outlines</strong>: The RGI workflow identifies duplicated outlines by ensuring that no representative point of one outline overlaps with another outline. This filtering process removed a small number of duplicate outlines that exist in GLIMS.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Polygon validity</strong>: The RGI workflow checks the validity of <a class="reference external" href="https://developers.arcgis.com/documentation/common-data-types/geometry-objects.htm">polygon geometries</a>. Approximately 2% of the geometries extracted from GLIMS for RGI 7.0 were considered “invalid” based on the Open Geospatial Consortium Implementation Standard. To rectify this, the RGI workflow employs Shapely’s <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">make_valid</span></code> function, which eliminates erroneous self-intersections or sliver polygons. The correction process ensures that each glacier’s area is preserved within a tolerance of 0.1 km² or 0.1 %. In rare cases where this could not be achieved, one GLIMS entry was split into two geometries, effectively adding two glaciers to the RGI instead of just one.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Overlapping area correction</strong>: The RGI workflow checks for and resolves overlapping areas by intersecting geometries with a common boundary and removing overlaps where necessary. However, such cases were rare.</p></li>
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