Albedo-anomaly method

This repository contains the implementation of the albedo-anomaly method, a technique used to estimate glacier mass balance by combining geodetic measurements with satellite-derived albedo estimates.

Repository Structure

GMB_estimation.ipynb

A Jupyter Notebook that demonstrates how to compute annual glacier mass balance time series using the albedo-anomaly method.

glalbedo.py

A Python module containing functions to calculate MOD10 glacier-wide summer albedo, which serves as a key input to the albedo-anomaly method.

data/

Contains input datasets required for the albedo-anomaly method:

Input Data

• Hugonnet2021/ — Geodetic glacier mass balance estimates (2000–2019)
  Source: Hugonnet et al. (2021)
• rgi60/ — Glacier outlines from the Randolph Glacier Inventory v6.0
  Source: RGIv6.0

Output Data

• albedo-anomaly_method_annual_gmb/ - Annual mass balance time series for all land-terminating, non-surging glaciers larger than 0.5 km², located in:
  • European Alps
  • Scandinavia
  • Svalbard

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Requirements

This project requires access to Google Earth Engine (GEE) to retrieve and process MODIS albedo data. The steps to set up GEEare :

1. Create a Google Earth Engine account
   Sign up at https://earthengine.google.com/signup/.

2. Create a GEE project
   After your account is approved, create a new project in the GEE Code Editor (e.g., projects/your-project-name).

3. Authenticate GEE in your Python environment
   Run the following command in your terminal or Jupyter notebook to link your Google account:

   earthengine authenticate
   

Ensure your project has the appropriate permissions and asset storage for exporting and reading data.

To run the notebook and scripts, you’ll need Python ≥ 3.8 and the following packages:

ee
geemap
pandas
geopandas
shapely
matplotlib