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

Related authors

Annual mass change of the world's glaciers from 1976 to 2024 by temporal downscaling of satellite data with in situ observations
Inés Dussaillant, Romain Hugonnet, Matthias Huss, Etienne Berthier, Jacqueline Bannwart, Frank Paul, and Michael Zemp
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 17, 1977–2006, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-1977-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-1977-2025, 2025
Short summary
Reconstructed glacier area and volume changes in the European Alps since the Little Ice Age
Johannes Reinthaler and Frank Paul
The Cryosphere, 19, 753–767, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-753-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-753-2025, 2025
Short summary
Three different glacier surges at a spot: what satellites observe and what not
Frank Paul, Livia Piermattei, Désirée Treichler, Lin Gilbert, Luc Girod, Andreas Kääb, Ludivine Libert, Thomas Nagler, Tazio Strozzi, and Jan Wuite
The Cryosphere, 16, 2505–2526, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-2505-2022,https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-2505-2022, 2022
Short summary
Ice Surface Velocity in the Eastern Arctic from Historical Satellite SAR Data
Tazio Strozzi, Andreas Wiesmann, Andreas Kääb, Thomas Schellenberger, and Frank Paul
Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2022-44,https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2022-44, 2022
Revised manuscript not accepted
Short summary
Strong acceleration of glacier area loss in the Greater Caucasus between 2000 and 2020
Levan G. Tielidze, Gennady A. Nosenko, Tatiana E. Khromova, and Frank Paul
The Cryosphere, 16, 489–504, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-489-2022,https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-489-2022, 2022
Short summary

Related subject area

Glaciology
Antarctic Ice Sheet grounding line discharge from 1996–2024
Benjamin J. Davison, Anna E. Hogg, Thomas Slater, Richard Rigby, and Nicolaj Hansen
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 17, 3259–3281, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-3259-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-3259-2025, 2025
Short summary
A high-resolution pan-Arctic meltwater discharge dataset from 1950 to 2021
Adam Igneczi and Jonathan Louis Bamber
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 17, 3203–3218, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-3203-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-3203-2025, 2025
Short summary
Smoothed monthly Greenland ice sheet elevation changes during 2003–2023
Shfaqat A. Khan, Helene Seroussi, Mathieu Morlighem, William Colgan, Veit Helm, Gong Cheng, Danjal Berg, Valentina R. Barletta, Nicolaj K. Larsen, William Kochtitzky, Michiel van den Broeke, Kurt H. Kjær, Andy Aschwanden, Brice Noël, Jason E. Box, Joseph A. MacGregor, Robert S. Fausto, Kenneth D. Mankoff, Ian M. Howat, Kuba Oniszk, Dominik Fahrner, Anja Løkkegaard, Eigil Y. H. Lippert, Alicia Bråtner, and Javed Hassan
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 17, 3047–3071, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-3047-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-3047-2025, 2025
Short summary
A revised and expanded deep radiostratigraphy of the Greenland Ice Sheet from airborne radar sounding surveys between 1993 and 2019
Joseph A. MacGregor, Mark A. Fahnestock, John D. Paden, Jilu Li, Jeremy P. Harbeck, and Andy Aschwanden
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 17, 2911–2931, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-2911-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-2911-2025, 2025
Short summary
Annual mass change of the world's glaciers from 1976 to 2024 by temporal downscaling of satellite data with in situ observations
Inés Dussaillant, Romain Hugonnet, Matthias Huss, Etienne Berthier, Jacqueline Bannwart, Frank Paul, and Michael Zemp
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 17, 1977–2006, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-1977-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-1977-2025, 2025
Short summary

Cited articles

Beniston, M., Diaz, H. F., and Bradley, R. S.: Climatic change at high elevation sites: A review, Climatic Change, 36, 233–251, 1997. 
Böhm, R., Auer, I., Brunetti, M., Maugeri, M., Nanni, T., and Schöner, W.: Regional temperature variability in the European Alps 1760–1998 from homogenized instrumental time series, Int. J. Climatol., 21, 1779–1801, 2001. 
Carturan, L., Filippi, R., Seppi, R., Gabrielli, P., Notarnicola, C., Bertoldi, L., Paul, F., Rastner, P., Cazorzi, F., Dinale, R., and Dalla Fontana, G.: Area and volume loss of the glaciers in the Ortles-Cevedale group (Eastern Italian Alps): controls and imbalance of the remaining glaciers, The Cryosphere, 7, 1339–1359, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-7-1339-2013, 2013. 
Casty, C., Wanner, H., Luterbacher, J., Esper, J., and Böhm, R.: Temperature and precipitation variability in the European Alps since 1500, Int. J. Climatol., 25, 1855–1880, 2005. 
Download
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.
Share
Altmetrics
Final-revised paper
Preprint