Since the late 1950s, the USGS has maintained a long-term glacier mass-balance program at three North American glaciers. Measurements began on South Cascade Glacier, WA in 1958, expanding to Gulkana and Wolverine glaciers, AK in 1966, and later Sperry Glacier, MT in 2005. Additional measurements have been made on Lemon Creek Glacier, AK to compliment data collected by the Juneau Icefield Research Program (JIRP; Pelto and others, 2013). Direct field measurements are combined with weather data and imagery analyses to estimate the seasonal and annual mass balance at each glacier in both a conventional and reference surface format (Cogley and others, 2011). High-altitude measurements of meteorological data have been collected since the beginning of the USGS Benchmark Glacier Program adjacent to glaciers in order to support related science. This portion of the data collection includes select weather data that has received basic quality control and assurance. Data is released at three different levels of processing, level 0, 1 and 2. Level 0 data contains compiled raw data, before QC procedures are applied, at the original timestep recorded by the instrument. Level 1 data has received a plausible value check, and minimal manual error identification (e.g. errors noted on field visits). Level 2 data has been through more extensive quality control procedures and is provided at both the original instrument timestep as well as aggregated hourly and daily values. However, beyond the procedures detailed in this document, no additional steps have been taken to manually assure quality of the data. Data outside the main record of temperature and precipitation at each site should be considered preliminary, and be utilized with increased scrutiny.

Since the late 1950s, the USGS has maintained a long-term glacier mass-balance program at three North American glaciers. Measurements began on South Cascade Glacier, WA in 1958, expanding to Gulkana and Wolverine glaciers, AK in 1966, and later Sperry Glacier, MT in 2005. Additional measurements have been made on Lemon Creek Glacier, AK to compliment data collected by the Juneau Icefield Research Program (JIRP; Pelto and others, 2013). Direct field measurements are combined with weather data and imagery analyses to estimate the seasonal and annual mass balance at each glacier in both a conventional and reference surface format (Cogley and others, 2011). High-altitude measurements of meteorological data have been collected since the beginning of the USGS Benchmark Glacier Program adjacent to glaciers in order to support related science. This portion of the data release includes select weather data that has received basic quality control and assurance. Data is released at three different levels of processing, level 0, 1 and 2. Level 0 data contains compiled raw data, before QC procedures are applied, at the original timestep recorded by the instrument. Level 1 data has received a plausible value check, and minimal manual error identification (e.g. errors noted on field visits). Level 2 data has been through more extensive quality control procedures and is provided at both the original instrument timestep as well as aggregated hourly and daily values. However, beyond the procedures detailed in this document, no additional steps have been taken to manually assure quality of the data. Data outside the main record of temperature and precipitation at each site should be considered preliminary, and be utilized with increased scrutiny.

Since the late 1950s, the USGS has maintained a long-term glacier mass-balance program at three North American glaciers. Measurements began on South Cascade Glacier, WA in 1958, expanding to Gulkana and Wolverine glaciers, AK in 1966, and later Sperry Glacier, MT in 2005. Additional measurements have been made on Lemon Creek Glacier, AK to compliment data collected by the Juneau Icefield Research Program (JIRP; Pelto and others, 2013). Direct field measurements of point glaciological data are combined with weather and geodetic data to estimate the seasonal and annual mass balance at each glacier in both a conventional and reference surface format (Cogley and others, 2011). The analysis framework (O'Neel, 2019; prior to v 3.0 van Beusekom and others, 2010) is identical at each glacier to enable cross-comparison between output time series. Vocabulary used follows Cogley and others (2011) Glossary of Glacier Mass Balance.

This data set is a collection of airborne, in-flight meteorological and in-cabin measurements, as well as thermal emission measurements of near-nadir surface skin temperature, collected by the National Suborbital Education and Research Center (NSERC). Instruments flown over Antarctica include a cabin pressure transducer, a 2-stage and a 3-stage hygrometer, a total air temperature sensor, and an infrared surface temperature pyrometer. The data files contain measurements for 36 meteorological, surface characteristic, and positional variables. The data were collected as part of Operation IceBridge funded campaigns.

U.S. Geological Survey researchers conducted time-series ground-penetrating radar (GPR) surveys with a Sensors and Software 500-MHz Pulse Ekko Pro system. This data release contains ground-based (ski and snowmobile) as well as airborne common-offset profiles. All profiles are linked to coincident GPS observations. Additionally, common-midpoint data was collected at specific glacier locations. Coincident in-situ data may provide calibration information, and may be composed of any of the following: snow pits and/or snow-pit/snow-core combinations, probe profiles, and ablation stake data. This supplemental information provides estimates of snow properties which may be used to calibrate radar velocity.

These data provide daily snow, temperature, and precipitation data for North America from 1959 to 2009. They are gridded to a 1-degree latitude by 1-degree longitude resolution to create a 114 x 58 grid for each day of data.

This dataset provides maps of rain-on-snow (ROS) events across Alaska for the individual cold season months from November to March using observations from two space-borne passive microwave radiometers: (a) the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS and Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR-E/2) from 2002 to 2023; and (b) the Special Sensor Microwave Imager and the Special Sensor Microwave Imager Sounder (SSMI/S) from 1988 to 2020. Considering the differences in sensor overpass time, observation geometry, and ancillary snow cover data, the AMSR-E/2 and SSMI/S-based ROS records were generated separately. ROS events were defined as changes in surface snow wetness and isothermal states induced by atmospheric processes associated with winter rainfall or latent heat exchange. The data are summations of the number of days with ROS events per pixel at 6-km spatial resolution per month or per 5-month water year. Winter months are when snowmelt from solar illumination is minimal and snow cover is widespread and relatively consistent throughout the region. The data are provided in GeoTIFF format.

Ice shelf surface elevation data from an oversnow ground-based traverse along the centre of the Amery Ice Shelf from A509 (69.06 S, 72.15 E) to T4 (71.22 S, 69.48 E), including two transverse arms; between G1 (69.49 S, 71.72 E) and A119 (69.81 S, 73.28 E); and between T3 (70.79 S, 68.89 E) and T2 (71.00 S, 70.75 E) during the 1968 spring-summer season. More information can be found at the BEDMAP website. The fields in this dataset are: Mission ID Latitude Longitude Ice Thickness Surface Elevation Water Column Thickness Bed Elevation