Technological concepts for modelling, monitoring and mapping the terrestrial cryosphere on continental to global scale

This paper focuses on modelling, monitoring and mapping concepts on a continental to global scale, using geo-referenced data from the terrestrial cryosphere as an example. The discussion takes a technological approach, showing how geographical information technology (GIT) and computer science can be used by scientists to improve the analysing capabilities of Earth observations from these often remote polar and mountainous areas. Huge amounts of geo-referenced measurements with relevance to the terrestrial cryosphere are presently available to the scientific community and the general public. This is a mixture of in situ and remote-sensing measurements, derived products and model results. The amount of data will probably increase exponentially in the future, particularly remote-sensing data. Making global analysis, including all available cryospheric variables, will require a common technological platform with the required data structures and analysing capabilities. A system of networked databases is one solution to the problem. The technology is available, but implementation of such a system will require a greater emphasis on GIT and data integration in the design of observation and analysis systems for the terrestrial cryosphere. Such an integrated approach will probably increase the capabilities of detecting climatic change, e.g. by applying advanced time-space statistical analysis. Results of climate models could also be integrated on a common platform along with geospatial measurements and different derived products.