Datasets for Ice Sheet Science

Both paleoclimatologic ice sheet data, which records historical ice sheet change, and contemporary ice sheet data, which is tabulated by modern satellite missions, are crucial for shedding light on ice sheet sensitivity to climate change. An important goal of GHub is to host selected ice-sheet datasets that are typically difficult to procure, making both contemporary and paleoclimatologic datasets accessible to the ice-sheet modeling community.

Offering both of these types of ice sheet data in a central location will foster the appropriate use of datasets to validate models, enable the use of valid but esoteric datasets in modeling, and ensure the participation of modelers in the data collection process.

Paleo Data

With the GHub gateway, we hope to smooth the way for collaborative use of and easy access to these informative datasets for forecasting ice sheet melting. Ghub will host relative sea level data from the Greenland periphery; ice margin mapping and dating from the literature; and Greenland Global Positioning System Network (GNET) paleo data. Efforts are now underway to extract basin information from existing models.

Contemporary Data

Contemporary ice sheet data consists of satellite observations that capture measures such as ice sheet surface height or thickness; ice flow speed; and geothermal flux. Ice sheet elevation change data provide sensitive indicators of ice sheet dynamics. This can assist in validating models, but time-series datasets of these elevation changes are needed.

The GHub collaboration is excited to host the ISMIP6 data release and now offers data access via Globus.

We are also testing functionality of dropbox linking to Jason's Google Earth Files.

Join us on GHub! Register now.