Articles | Volume 16, issue 8
The Cryosphere, 16, 3215–3233, 2022
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-3215-2022
The Cryosphere, 16, 3215–3233, 2022
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-3215-2022
Research article
 | Highlight paper
12 Aug 2022
Research article  | Highlight paper | 12 Aug 2022

TermPicks: a century of Greenland glacier terminus data for use in scientific and machine learning applications

Sophie Goliber et al.

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Interactive discussion

Status: closed

Comment types: AC – author | RC – referee | CC – community | EC – editor | CEC – chief editor | : Report abuse
  • RC1: 'Comment on tc-2021-311', Anonymous Referee #1, 15 Nov 2021
  • RC2: 'Comment on tc-2021-311', Anonymous Referee #2, 16 Dec 2021
  • RC3: 'Comment on tc-2021-311', Anonymous Referee #3, 27 Jan 2022

Peer review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision
ED: Publish subject to revisions (further review by editor and referees) (17 Mar 2022) by Kristin Poinar
AR by Sophie Goliber on behalf of the Authors (28 Apr 2022)  Author's response    Author's tracked changes    Manuscript
ED: Publish subject to revisions (further review by editor and referees) (16 May 2022) by Kristin Poinar
AR by Sophie Goliber on behalf of the Authors (15 Jun 2022)  Author's response    Author's tracked changes    Manuscript
ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (21 Jun 2022) by Kristin Poinar
RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (05 Jul 2022)
ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (05 Jul 2022) by Kristin Poinar
AR by Sophie Goliber on behalf of the Authors (05 Jul 2022)  Author's response    Author's tracked changes    Manuscript
ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (06 Jul 2022) by Kristin Poinar
AR by Sophie Goliber on behalf of the Authors (07 Jul 2022)  Author's response    Author's tracked changes    Manuscript
ED: Publish as is (07 Jul 2022) by Kristin Poinar
AR by Sophie Goliber on behalf of the Authors (14 Jul 2022)  Author's response    Manuscript
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Co-editor-in-chief
Goliber et al. present a rich new dataset for the lengths of 278 glaciers around Greenland. This dataset, "TermPicks", contains 39,060 detailed traces of the edges of these glaciers, where ice meets ocean. TermPicks spans the entire satellite record (1970s-present), with air photo coverage for some glaciers going back >100 years to 1916. TermPicks is designed for use as training data in machine learning applications, which are the future of the tedious "terminus picking" work that has largely been performed by students to date. Thus, TermPicks will facilitate a significant leap forward in Greenland glacier research by facilitating machine-learning-enabled analysis of the continual high-flux, big-data output of high-resolution imagery by our international constellation of earth-observing satellites.
Short summary
Terminus traces have been used to understand how Greenland's glaciers have changed over time; however, manual digitization is time-intensive, and a lack of coordination leads to duplication of efforts. We have compiled a dataset of over 39 000 terminus traces for 278 glaciers for scientific and machine learning applications. We also provide an overview of an updated version of the Google Earth Engine Digitization Tool (GEEDiT), which has been developed specifically for the Greenland Ice Sheet.