Glacier Mass Balance and Regime: Data of Measurements and ...

100Number of mass balance records80604020019461948195019521954195619581960196219641966196819701972197419761978198019821984198619881990199219941996Fig. I.1. Histogram showing the numbers of glaciers with mass balance records, annually since thebeginning of continuous mass-balance observations.These WGMS publications are the main sources of data used in this paper. Every effort has been alsomade to include data from other sources of information around the globe. The quantity and quality ofdata are far better for the Northern Hemisphere, specifically, Europe, Canada and U.S.A., and theFormer Soviet Union (FSU), than for the rest of the world. About 70% of measurements have beencarried out in Scandinavia, the Alps, the mountains of the U.S.A., Canada, and the FSU, and the other30% are sparsely distributed over all mountain and subpolar regions (Fig. 2). For many regions data onglacier regime are almost completely lacking (e.g., Karakorum, Tibetan Plateau, Northern Himalayas,Hindukush and Hindurage, Sayany, S.E. Siberia, Koryak Range and other ranges in N-E. Siberia,Aleutian Islands, Novaya Zemlya, De Long Islands, Jan Mayen Island, individual ice caps aroundAntarctic and Greenland ice sheets, several regions in the Andes and several other areas). The histogram(Fig. 1) reflects the current decrease in number of mass balance measurements in the world, even thoughsome new programs have been organized in South America and Iceland. A serious problem is thatseveral long-term mass balance programs were canceled in the FSU (Caucasus, Polar Ural, Pamir, TienShan, Djungariya, Severnaya Zemlya), for economical reasons. In the Alps (Limmern and Plattalvayear12