Data

Glaciers: change of mass of US glaciers

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About this data

Glaciers: change of mass of US glaciers
Measured in meters of water equivalent, which represent changes in the average thickness of a glacier relative to a base year 1965.
Source
EPA based on various sources (2021)with minor processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
January 14, 2026
Next expected update
May 2026
Date range
1952–2019
Unit
meters

Sources and processing

United States Environmental Protection Agency – Climate Change Indicators: Glaciers

This dataset examines the balance between snow accumulation and melting in glaciers, and it describes how glaciers have changed over time.

Retrieved on
April 17, 2024
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) - Climate Change Indicators: Glaciers (2021)
The underlying data comes from the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Glacier-wide mass balance and compiled data inputs: USGS benchmark glaciers (ver. 4.0, November 2019). Accessed December 2020. https://alaska.usgs.gov/products/data.php?dataid=79. doi:10.5066/F7HD7SRF.
More details can be found on the EPA's technical documentation.

This dataset examines the balance between snow accumulation and melting in glaciers, and it describes how glaciers have changed over time.

Retrieved on
April 17, 2024
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) - Climate Change Indicators: Glaciers (2021)
The underlying data comes from the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Glacier-wide mass balance and compiled data inputs: USGS benchmark glaciers (ver. 4.0, November 2019). Accessed December 2020. https://alaska.usgs.gov/products/data.php?dataid=79. doi:10.5066/F7HD7SRF.
More details can be found on the EPA's technical documentation.

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Glaciers: change of mass of US glaciers”, part of the following publication: Hannah Ritchie, Pablo Rosado, and Veronika Samborska (2024) - “Climate Change”. Data adapted from United States Environmental Protection Agency. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260304-094028/grapher/mass-us-glaciers.html [online resource] (archived on March 4, 2026).

How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

EPA based on various sources (2021) – with minor processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

EPA based on various sources (2021) – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “Glaciers: change of mass of US glaciers” [dataset]. United States Environmental Protection Agency, “Climate Change Indicators: Glaciers” [original data]. Retrieved April 1, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260304-094028/grapher/mass-us-glaciers.html (archived on March 4, 2026).

Quick download

Download the data shown in this chart as a ZIP file containing a CSV file, metadata in JSON format, and a README. The CSV file can be opened in Excel, Google Sheets, and other data analysis tools.

Data API

Use these URLs to programmatically access this chart's data and configure your requests with the options below. Our documentation provides more information on how to use the API, and you can find a few code examples below.

Data URL (CSV format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/mass-us-glaciers.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false
Metadata URL (JSON format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/mass-us-glaciers.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false

Code examples

Examples of how to load this data into different data analysis tools.

Excel / Google Sheets
=IMPORTDATA("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/mass-us-glaciers.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")
Python with Pandas
import pandas as pd
import requests

# Fetch the data.
df = pd.read_csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/mass-us-glaciers.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", storage_options = {'User-Agent': 'Our World In Data data fetch/1.0'})

# Fetch the metadata
metadata = requests.get("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/mass-us-glaciers.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false").json()
R
library(jsonlite)

# Fetch the data
df <- read.csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/mass-us-glaciers.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")

# Fetch the metadata
metadata <- fromJSON("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/mass-us-glaciers.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")
Stata
import delimited "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/mass-us-glaciers.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", encoding("utf-8") clear