Glossary of Glacier Mass Balance and Related Terms

The glossary has been published 2011 by the International Hydrological Programme of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO-IHP), Paris, in the series of IHP Technical Documents in Hydrology No. 86 | IACS Contribution No. 2. Hard-copies are no longer available. The glossary can be downloaded from the UNESCO website.

This glossary is a comprehensive update of glacier mass-balance and related terms including definitions of more than 400 terms. The glossary was produced by the IACS Working Group of Mass balance terminology and methods (2008 – 2012).

Click here to get more info on the working group.

Citation:
Cogley, J.G., R. Hock, L.A. Rasmussen, A.A. Arendt, A. Bauder, R.J. Braithwaite, P. Jansson, G. Kaser, M. Möller, L. Nicholson and M. Zemp, 2011, Glossary of Glacier Mass Balance and Related Terms, IHP-VII Technical Documents in Hydrology No. 86, IACS Contribution No. 2, UNESCO-IHP, Paris.

Last updated on November 6th, 2021 at 04:40 pm | IACS Webmaster

Glossary mass balance

Cited from the Glossary, p. 2:
“An early proposal for uniform usage in the study of mass balance came from Mark Meier (1962). The terms and the organizing framework of that paper provoked considerable interest and discussion, and evolved into a consensus which was published as Technical Papers in Hydrology , No. 3, by UNESCO/IASH in 1970, although the source most often cited is Anonymous (1969), a digest of the UNESCO/IASH recommendations which appeared in the Journal of Glaciology, 8(52), 1969.”

WMO Guide to Instruments and Methods of Observations – Measurement of Glaciers

Volume II “Measurement of Cryospheric Variables” of the Guide on Instruments and Methods of Observation (GIMO) is a contribution of Global Cryosphere Watch (GCW) to ensure high quality and consistent observations and measurements of cryospheric variables made in accordance with accepted standards. Emphasis is put on establishing standards in agreement with the existing ones as well as with guidelines for observations of single cryospheric variables, some of which are routinely used. IACS members contribute substantially to this volume.
Chapter III of Volume II is dedicated to the measurement of glaciers and was provisionally released in 2023.