Since the year 2000, melting glaciers around the world have lost 273 billion tons of ice annually, on average, a new study by researchers at the University of Zurich has found.
This equates to around 5% of the total ice held by glaciers, which totalled 121,728 billion tonnes as of the year 2000, covering an area of 705,221 square kilometres.
According to the study, the melting of glaciers around the world has accelerated in recent years, with a 36% increase recorded between the first (2000−2011) and the second (2012−2023) half of the study period.
As the research found, glacier mass loss is about 18% larger than the loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet and more than twice that from the Antarctic Ice Sheet, and has contributed around 18 mm to global sea-level rise since the start of the century.
About the study
The study, entitled the Glacier Mass Balance Intercomparison Exercise (GlaMBIE), was undertaken by the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS), hosted at the University of Zurich (UZH) in Switzerland.
The research team examined glacier mass changes using data from multiple field and satellite observation methods, consolidating 233 estimates of regional glacier mass changes provided by approximately 450 data contributors from 35 research teams.
Year-to-year variability
“By combining the advantages of the different observation methods, GlaMBIE provides not only new insights into regional trends and year-to-year variability,” commented Michael Zemp, UZH professor at the department of geography, who led the study. “We could also identify differences among observation methods, which is an opportunity to better understand and improve future estimates.”
Glacier melt is increasingly impacting freshwater availability, the study found, particularly in regions such as Central Asia and the Central Andes, where glaciers provide runoff during dry and warm seasons.
“To put this in perspective, the 273 billion tonnes of ice lost in one single year amounts to what the entire global population consumes in 30 years, assuming three litres per person and day,” Zemp added. Read more here.
