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Hydrologic Outlets of the Greenland Ice Sheet, Version 1

Metadata Updated: December 7, 2023

The Hydrologic Outlets of the Greenland Ice Sheet data set contains GIS point shapefiles that include 891 observed and potential hydrologic outlets of the Greenland Ice Sheet, as identified by Lewis and Smith (2009), using satellite imagery. There are 460 observed hydrologic outlets that include proglacial streams and rivers emerging from the ice sheet (length scale >1 km), proglacial lakes touching the ice edge or clearly connected to it via streams or rivers (length scale >3 km), and sediment-rich plumes exiting tidewater glaciers into fjords. Also, there are 431 potential hydrologic outlets that include point locations with release of meltwater from fjords without obvious sediment discharge, as well as locations where the ice sheet directly connects to the ocean that cannot be proven to release meltwater.

Meltwater features along the entire edge of the ice sheet were mapped via photo interpretation of GoogleEarth and Landsat ETM+ 15 m panchromatic data. The exact acquisition dates of the imagery are not available; however, owing to the light and relatively snow-free conditions seen in the GoogleEarth and Landsat images, it is presumed that they were taken during the summer season. Neither Landsat or GoogleEarth images were available for a section of ice sheet within the northern Tunu region; therefore, that region was excluded from the study. This excluded area represents approximately 0.9 percent of the ice sheet perimeter. Data are available via FTP, and can be read in any GIS software. The following journal article provides documentation for this data set: Lewis, Sarah and Laurence Smith. 2009. Hydrologic Drainage of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Hydrological Processes doi: 10.1002/hyp.7343. This journal article can be accessed from the Documentation link at the top of this Web page.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date November 12, 2020
Metadata Updated Date December 7, 2023

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date November 12, 2020
Metadata Updated Date December 7, 2023
Publisher NASA NSIDC DAAC
Maintainer
Identifier C1386250445-NSIDCV0
Data First Published 1991-01-01
Language en-US
Data Last Modified 2000-12-31
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 026:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://data.nasa.gov/data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Citation Hydrologic Outlets of the Greenland Ice Sheet, Version 1. Version 1. Archived by National Aeronautics and Space Administration, U.S. Government, NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center. https://doi.org/10.5067/NBBVU83OJYY1.
Harvest Object Id 2367cbff-b6e9-4991-b7b7-36ae92c778f6
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Homepage URL https://doi.org/10.5067/NBBVU83OJYY1
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -80.79734 59.58015 -8.96739 85.02649
Program Code 026:001
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash d20b60793df1b907765cd50d6f268960d063a268380f79cb3bce61beef95a069
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial
Temporal 1991-01-01T00:00:00Z/2000-12-31T23:59:59.999Z

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