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USGS Benchmark Glacier Project Comprehensive Data Collection

Metadata Updated: February 22, 2025

Mountain glaciers are closely coupled to climate processes, ecosystems, and regional water resources. To enhance physical understanding of these connections, the USGS maintains a collection of glacier mass balance and climate data across the western United States and Alaska. In some cases, records of glacier mass balance extend back to the mid-1940s. These data have been incorporated from various sources, primarily original USGS studies, but also including work from the University of Alaska, and the Juneau Icefield Research Program (JIRP). The core of this collection is composed of mass balance data from the USGS Benchmark Glaciers. These five glaciers are Lemon Creek Glacier, AK (1953 -Present), South Cascade Glacier, WA (1958 - Present), Gulkana and Wolverine glaciers, AK (1966 - Present), and Sperry Glacier, MT (2005 - Present). Datasets from each benchmark glacier are composed of, at a minimum, point mass balances, glacier hypsometry, daily temperature and precipitation, geodetic mass balances, and glacier-wide mass balances. Data from other glaciers within this collection may be less complete, continuous, or representative as data from the benchmark glaciers. In these cases, we urge users to carefully inspect the associated metadata of each specific data release for further details.

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 June 1, 2023
Metadata Updated Date February 22, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI EDI

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date June 1, 2023
Metadata Updated Date February 22, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
@Id http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/85de9a789499e780427ae231b2ed7a40
Identifier USGS:ASC258
Data Last Modified 20201125
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://datainventory.doi.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
Harvest Object Id e5765000-d62f-471a-ac77-33ad207ae73e
Harvest Source Id 52bfcc16-6e15-478f-809a-b1bc76f1aeda
Harvest Source Title DOI EDI
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -180.0,35.0,-100.0,71.0
Publisher Hierarchy White House > U.S. Department of the Interior > U.S. Geological Survey
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash b731ec6fa85503ed94d894d3a2b986d6c491303f0574dc1fd76bb98095f10d24
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -180.0, 35.0, -180.0, 71.0, -100.0, 71.0, -100.0, 35.0, -180.0, 35.0}

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