Glaciers in Western North America Mass Loss Geospatial Data (2021-2024)

10.21966/p6jv-pe95

Glaciers are essential parts of the mountain landscape, with strong cultural and tourism value, and they provide cool, plentiful water to many headwater streams during late summer and years of drought. We report on rates of mass loss for western Canada and the conterminous US glaciers. Over the period 2021-2024, glaciers in both regions experienced a doubling of melt rates compared to the previous decade. Glaciers lost 12% of their total 2020 volume over this four-year period. Conditions that favored strong mass loss included warm dry conditions and surface darkening of snow and ice.

Access and Use

Licence: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
Limitations: Appropriate credit must be given to Hakai Institute and the authors of the dataset.

Data and Resources

Citation

Related Works

Keywords

Dataset extent

Metadata Reference Date(s) May 09, 2025 (Publication)
May 09, 2025 (Revision)
Data Reference Date(s) March 01, 2021 (Creation)
May 25, 2025 (Publication)
Frequency of Update As Needed

Responsible Party 1
Name
Menounos, Brian ORCID logo
Affiliation
Geological Survey of Canada ROR logo
Email
menounos@unbc.ca
Role
  • Author
  • Point of Contact
  • Principal Investigator
Responsible Party 2
Name
Huss, Matthias ORCID logo
Affiliation
University of Fribourg ROR logo
Role
Author
Responsible Party 3
Responsible Party 4
Name
Ednie, Mark ORCID logo
Affiliation
Geological Survey of Canada ROR logo
Role
Author
Responsible Party 5
Name
Florentine, Caitlyn ORCID logo
Affiliation
United States Geological Survey ROR logo
Email
cflorentine@usgs.gov
Role
Author
Responsible Party 6
Responsible Party 7
Affiliation
Hakai Institute ROR logo
Email
data@hakai.org
Role
Publisher
Responsible Party 8
Affiliation
Tula Foundation ROR logo
Email
data@hakai.org
Role
Funder
Responsible Party 9
Name
Hakai Geospatial
Affiliation
Hakai Institute ROR logo
Email
data@hakai.org
Role
  • Custodian
  • Distributor
  • Owner
  • Point of Contact
  • Processor

Field Value
Ocean Variables Other
Climate Variables Snow
Scope Dataset
Status Completed
Topic Category oceans
Maintenance Note Generated from https://hakaiinstitute.github.io/hakai-metadata-entry-form#/en/hakai/RvRPlFMSsIaBwoGdQIq5BVYfBBa2/-OP86akjVj471Wit4O2y
Spatial Extent { "coordinates": [ [ [ -127.3, 54.17 ], [ -119.5, 55.38 ], [ -112.5, 52.06 ], [ -115.3, 47.05 ], [ -125.9, 48.0 ], [ -128.3, 51.41 ], [ -127.3, 54.17 ] ] ], "type": "Polygon" }
North Bounding Latitude 47.05
South Bounding Latitude 55.38
East Bounding Longitude -112.5
West Bounding Longitude -128.3
Temporal Extent
Begin
2021-03-01
End
2024-11-16
Vertical Extent
Min
0.0
Max
2822.0
Default Locale English
Citation identifier
Code
https://doi.org/10.21966/p6jv-pe95
Projects
  1. Geospatial
  2. Airborne Coastal Observatory
Included in Data Catalogue
Included in Data Catalogue 1
Name
Hakai Data Catalogue
Description
Science on the Coastal Margin
URL
https://catalogue.hakai.org