Articles | Volume 12, issue 3
https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-1805-2020
https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-1805-2020
Data description paper
 | 
18 Aug 2020
Data description paper |  | 18 Aug 2020

Glacier shrinkage in the Alps continues unabated as revealed by a new glacier inventory from Sentinel-2

Frank Paul, Philipp Rastner, Roberto Sergio Azzoni, Guglielmina Diolaiuti, Davide Fugazza, Raymond Le Bris, Johanna Nemec, Antoine Rabatel, Mélanie Ramusovic, Gabriele Schwaizer, and Claudio Smiraglia

Data sets

Glacier inventory of the Alps from Sentinel-2 Paul, Frank; Rastner, Philipp; Azzoni, Roberto Sergio; Diolaiuti, Guglielmina; Fugazza, Davide; Le Bris, Raymond; Nemec, Johanna; Rabatel, Antoine; Ramusovic, Mélanie; Schwaizer, Gabriele; Smiraglia, Claudio https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.909133

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Short summary
We have used Sentinel-2 satellite data from 2015 and 2016 to create a new glacier inventory for the European Alps. Outlines from earlier national inventories were used to guide manual corrections (e.g. ice in shadow or under debris cover) of the automatically mapped clean ice. We mapped 4395 glaciers, covering 1806 km2, an area loss of about 14 % (or −1.2 % per year) compared to the last inventory of 2003. We conclude that glacier shrinkage in the Alps has continued unabated since the mid-1980s.