Randolph Glacier Inventory - A Dataset of Global Glacier Outlines

The Randolph Glacier Inventory (RGI) is a global set of glacier outlines intended as a snapshot of the world’s glaciers outside of ice sheets. It provides a single outline for each glacier from approximately the year 2000, as well as a set of attributes and other relevant auxiliary information. Glacier outlines are distributed as Shapefiles. Hypsometric data and attributes (CSV files) and metadata (json) are also available. All RGI data are packaged both globally and by region (as defined by the Global Terrestrial Network for Glaciers (GTN-G) Glacier Regions). The RGI is not suitable for measuring glacier-by-glacier rates of area change. However, it can be used to estimate glacier volumes; rates of elevation change at regional and global scales; and glacier responses to climatic forcing. RGI version 7.0 was developed by the “Working Group on the Randolph Glacier Inventory (RGI) and its role in future glacier monitoring” of the International Association of Cryospheric Sciences (IACS). The glaciological community contributes glacier mapping data to the Global Land Ice Measurements from Space (GLIMS) database. A subset of the glacier outlines in GLIMS are then extracted and reprocessed to produce the RGI. See the RGI documentation under "User Guide" (below) for more information.

Data and Resources

Cite this as

DOI:
10.5067/F6JMOVY5NAVZ
RGI 7.0 Consortium, 2023. Randolph Glacier Inventory - A Dataset of Global Glacier Outlines, Version 7.0. Boulder, Colorado USA. NSIDC: National Snow and Ice Data Center. doi:10.5067/f6jmovy5navz. Online access: https://doi.org/10.5067/f6jmovy5navz
Published: 2025-08-06 | Publisher: UNESCO

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Basic information
DOI 10.5067/F6JMOVY5NAVZ
Resource type Spatial data set
Date of creation 2025-06-02
Date of last revision 2025-08-06
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Metadata identifier Randolph-Glacier-Inventory:-A-Dataset-of-Global-Glacier-Outlines
Metadata language English
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High-value dataset category Geospatial
ISO 19115 topic category environment
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Spatial information
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INSPIRE Themes
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Coordinate Reference System EPSG:4326
Spatial representation Type Vector
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Version notes

Changes for this version include: Updated inventory data substantially improves outline quality in many regions. New attributes added, others removed or renamed/redefined.New "glacier complex" product provides outlines for contiguous glacier complexes.New shapefiles available with common boundaries of individual glaciers (“intersects”) and glacier centerlines (“centerlines”). All outlines and attributes derived exclusively from GLIMS, using new largely automated workflow with publicly available code to ensure reproducibility. File naming conventions updated.
Version 7.0
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Name of the dataset creator (Legacy) NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center
Name of the dataset maintainer IHP-WINS
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Email of the dataset creator (Legacy) ihp-wins@unesco.org
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Email of the dataset maintainer ihp-wins@unesco.org
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