Glacier complex product

New in RGI 7.0

The glacier complex product is the result of a spatial merge operation of the glacier product (dissolve in the GIS jargon). The operation is realized on geometries only, which means that any cluster of connected glaciers (however small the connection) will be merged into one entity in the glacier complex product. The resulting inventory has the same area but a smaller or equal number of entities as the glacier product. Only a few attributes from the original glacier product remain after the merge.

The glacier complex product may be preferred over the glacier product for certain applications, for example for distributed glacier flow modeling or for ice thickness inversions.

Fig. 4 Example of the glacier complex product (light blue), with outlines in black. In comparison with the glacier product, the divides between individual glaciers have disappeared and the entire ice mass constitutes one single entity.

Product files

In the following, file contents are explained using RGI region 01 (Alaska) as example:

RGI2000-v7.0-C-01_alaska.shp

The RGI glacier complex outlines as a shapefile (with accompanying .dbf, .prj, .cpg and .shx files).

RGI2000-v7.0-C-01_alaska-attributes.csv

Glacier complex attributes in a .csv file. The attributes are strictly the same as those encountered in the shapefile. This file allows users to read glacier attributes without reading the entire shapefile.

RGI2000-v7.0-C-01_alaska-attributes_metadata.json

Description of the attributes in the glacier complex product shapefile: full name, description, units, etc. The content of this file is displayed in Full list of attributes below.

RGI2000-v7.0-C-01_alaska-CtoG_links.json

Links between the glacier complex to the glacier products, in a JSON dictionary. The keys are the glacier complex identifiers (same length as the glacier complex file) and the values are the corresponding glacier product identifiers (one or more depending on the size of the cluster).

Full list of attributes

The following attributes are available in the RGI 7.0 shapefiles.

rgi_id

long_name: RGI identifier
description: Unique identifier assigned to a single glacier complex.
datatype: str
units:
source: RGI

o1region

long_name: First order region
description: The code of the first-order region to which the glacier belongs.
datatype: str
units:
source: RGI

o2region

long_name: Second order region
description: The code of the second-order region to which the glacier belongs.
datatype: str
units:
source: RGI

cenlon

long_name: Center longitude
description: Longitude of an approximately central point within the glacier outlines (not the centroid).
datatype: float
units: degrees
source: RGI

cenlat

long_name: Center latitude
description: Latitude of an approximately central point within the glacier outlines (not the centroid).
datatype: float
units: degrees
source: RGI

utm_zone

long_name: UTM zone
description: Number of the UTM zone for this glacier complex, based on its representative point. Note that this attribute is for information only, the geometries are all in WGS84.
datatype: int
units:
source: RGI

area_km2

long_name: Glacier complex area
description: Area of the glacier complex.
datatype: float
units: km2
source: RGI

geometry

long_name: Geometry
description: Glacier complex geometry (Polygon).
datatype:
units: deg
source: RGI