DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17037245
title: Alps-wide high-resolution 3D modelling reconstruction of glacier geometry and climatic conditions for the Little Ice Age

description: This dataset accompanies the publication of Henz et al. (2025), entitled: "Alps-wide high-resolution 3D modelling reconstruction of glacier geometry and climatic conditions for the Little Ice Age"

Article: https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-5913-2025

Authors: Andreas Henz, Johannes Reinthaler, Samuel U. Nussbaumer, Tancrède P.M. Leger, Sarah Kamleitner, Guillaume Jouvet, Andreas VieliInstitutions: University of Zurich, University of LausanneContact: Andreas Henz (andreas.henz@geo.uzh.ch)

---

## OverviewThis dataset provides a high-resolution 3D reconstruction of glacier geometry and climatic conditions during the Little Ice Age (LIA) in the European Alps. The reconstruction is based on the Instructed Glacier Model (IGM), which incorporates ice-flow dynamics and mass conservation. The dataset includes glacier attributes such as area, volume, equilibrium line altitude (ELA), and climatic variables (temperature, precipitation, solar radiation) for single glaciers in the European Alps.

The data is provided in CSV and shapefile formats, along with additional files for reproducibility and analysis.

---

##Paper Abstract

Glaciers are crucial indicators of climate change, and reconstructing their past geometries helps to understand past climate fluctuations. Various methods exist for reconstructing past glaciers, including simple power-law scaling and advanced GIS-based techniques that incorporate glacier outlines or surface hypsometry. However, these methods have limitations, such as not explicitly accounting for the physics of ice flow or mass conservation. Numerical glacier models, such as the Instructed Glacier Model (IGM), can overcome these limitations by incorporating ice-flow dynamics and mass conservation. This study presents the first Alps-wide, three-dimensional, model-derived reconstruction of glacier surfaces during the Little Ice Age in the European Alps, a period crucial for understanding pre-industrial natural climate variability. We simulate glaciers to match the empirically mapped Little Ice Age maximum extent at a resolution of 50 m. The simulation of the geometry of all glaciers of the European Alps resulted in a total ice volume of 283±42 km3. The reconstruction reveals regional and local patterns of equilibrium line altitudes derived separately for each glacier. These spatial patterns are influenced by factors such as air temperature, precipitation and shortwave radiation, highlighting the complex interplay of climatic and topographic factors in reconstructing these glaciers and their mass fluxes. A sensitivity analysis indicates an uncertainty of up to 14% in the total ice volume and minimal sensitivity to parameter modifications for the equilibrium line altitude. Future work could include more sophisticated surface mass balance implementations to better understand the equilibrium line altitude patterns.

---

## Folder Structure and Provided FilesIn the main folder, you will find:

- **`ensemble/`**: Contains all model configurations used in the ensemble simulations.- **`input_data_igm/`**: Includes the input data required for the IGM model runs.- **`plotting/`**: Contains scripts and files used for generating the figures in the paper.- **`post-processing/`**: Includes scripts and documentation for post-processing steps applied to the model outputs. This also includes all evaluatied LIA glacier outlines, volumes, areas, ELAs for all ensemble runs (sensitivity analysis).

The results are provided in the main folder as:- Shapefiles: Spatial data of reconstructed glaciers (for the main run in 50 m resolution), for the sensitivity runs they are in the post-processing folder.- CSV files: Tabular data containing all glacier attributes for the main run in 50 m resolution (as described below).- Reconstructed surfaces (TIFF): Raster files of the reconstructed glacier surfaces.- Reconstructed LIA glacier thicknesses (TIFF): Raster files showing the modeled ice thickness during the LIA.

Additionally, the bedrock file used for the reconstruction is included in the input-data-igm folder.