5% of the total volume
Glacier retreat has accelerated significantly since 2010
In the past decade, glacier retreat has increased significantly. By as much as five percent of the total volume since 2000. That is an average of around 273 billion tons of ice per year. In the Alps and Pyrenees, this was also much greater than in the Antarctic and sub-Antarctic regions.
With the exception of the continental ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, the world's glaciers covered an area of around 705,200 square kilometers. However, the ice masses around the globe are increasingly shrinking.
According to the latest findings of 35 teams from the Glacier Mass Balance Intercomparison Exercise (GlaMBIE) research initiative*, glaciers worldwide have lost around five percent of their total volume since 2000.
This amount is comparable to five and a half times the volume of Lake Constance. As study leader Michael Zemp from the University of Zurich (UZH) explained, this could supply the world's population with three liters of water every day for 30 years.
However, the average also conceals an accelerated increase in the second half of the study period - from 231 billion tons per year in the first half of the study period (2000 to 2011) to 314 billion tons in the second half. From 2012 to 2023, the loss was thus 36 percent higher than from 2000 to 2011.
Strong regional differences
While the loss of mass in less exposed regions such as the Antarctic and sub-Antarctic islands is 1.5 percent, the European Alps and Pyrenees - comparatively smaller glaciers - recorded a decline of around 39 percent of their glacier mass. They are particularly affected by the rise in temperatures due to their low altitude.
Rise in sea level
The globally melting glaciers have caused sea levels to rise by 18 millimetres since 2000. This would make the melting of glaciers the second strongest driver of sea level rise after ocean warming, well ahead of the loss of mass of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.
Huge amounts of freshwater stored
Huge quantities of fresh water are stored in the Earth's glaciers. As glacier ice dwindles, a precious supply of freshwater is gradually being lost.
*The GlaMBIE study aims to assess global glacier retreat, including regional differences. It is based on a detailed analysis of several years of data from a total of 450 sources - including direct field measurement data as well as radar, laser and gravimetric data from numerous satellite missions. By combining the data from these different sources, an annual time series of glacier mass changes from 2000 to 2023 was created.
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