The World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) was started in 1986, combining the two former services PSFG (Permanent Service on Fluctuations of Glaciers) and TTS/WGI (Temporal Technical Secretary/World Glacier Inventory).
The WGMS is based at a centre at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, and the Director of the Service is Wilfried Haeberli. It is supported by the United Nations Environment Programme.
WGMS "collects standardised observations on changes in mass, volume, area and length of glaciers with time (glacier fluctuations), as well as statistical information on the distribution of perennial surface ice in space (glacier inventories). Such glacier fluctuation and inventory data are high priority key variables in climate system monitoring; they form a basis for hydrological modelling with respect to possible effects of atmospheric warming, and provide fundamental information in glaciology, glacial geomorphology and quaternary geology."
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