Photogrammetrically Derived Digital Elevation Models of Mount Rainier Proglacial Areas, 1960 to 2017

This repository contains a suite of digital elevation models (DEMs), derived from aerial or satellite imagery, covering glacier and proglacial areas on Mount Rainier between 1960 and 2017. Data are available for the Emmons, Winthrop, Nisqually, and South Tahoma Glaciers and their associated proglacial areas. These data were used in Anderson and Shean (2021) to calculate DEMs of Difference (DoDs) and assess topographic change in these proglacial settings. Aerial lidar datasets used in that analysis are available through the Washington Department of Natural Resources lidar repository (https://lidarportal.dnr.wa.gov/). The DEMs stored here have been coregistered to the 2008 Mount Rainier aerial lidar dataset. Differencing of sequential DEMs will exactly reproduce DoDs used in Anderson and Shean (2021); shapefiles defining exact areas of analysis used to generate final change volumes are also available in a separate child item of this repository. DEMs are separated by glacier/basin and year, indicated in the file name. In several instances, the Winthrop and Emmons study areas contained continuous overlapping photos and were processed together. Each zip file includes a DEM in TIF format with associated supporting files. Zip files for DEMs generated using Agisoft Photoscan (all except the 2017 DEMs) also include a processing report that summarizes imagery and ground control inputs as well as processing parameters used in their generation. Imagery source information: The majority of the aerial imagery used to derive these DEMs was collected by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and later scanned and publicly archived by Nolan et al. (2017). Images are available at doi:10.18739/A21R9G. Imagery from 1951 and 1961 are available through the USGS EarthExplorer repository (https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/). Imagery of the Emmons and Nisqually from 2005 were collected by the National Park Service and scanned from negatives for this project. Imagery of South Tahoma Glacier from 1960 were collected by the U.S. Geological Survey; print images held at Mount Rainier National Park were scanned for this project.