Published: March 16, 2003

Denver-Boulder area media are invited to a workshop sponsored by the University of Colorado at Boulder examining global glacier shrinkage.

The workshop, which began March 16, is at the Boulder Inn Best Western at 770 28th St. The event, which runs through March 18, is not open to the public.

Participants are evaluating current methods of determining the worldwide retreat of mountain glaciers over the last half-century or longer. The workshop is sponsored by the CU-Boulder-based Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, a joint institute of CU-Boulder and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

"Current systems for monitoring glaciers are often insufficient or too outdated to do the job," said Roger Barry, director of CU-Boulder's National Snow and Ice Data Center, a division of CIRES and organizer of the conference. "The time is right to develop a coordinated approach for monitoring glaciers around the globe, especially given current satellite imagery and other technologies at our disposal."

Recent evidence suggests an acceleration of glacier mass loss in several key regions around the globe. Such glacier changes are significant due to their impact on global sea level rise and water resources. The workshop will include a demonstration of GIS-based mapping techniques using satellite imagery and digital databases.

For more information and the workshop agenda, go to the Web at: .