Melting glaciers are driving sea levels to rise at ever faster rates, a major new study has warned.
An international team of scientists says Earth’s glaciers are vanishing so fast they now release 273 billion tonnes of ice into the ocean each year.
While the world’s glaciers have lost five per cent of their mass on average, glaciers in central Europe have already shrunk by almost 40 per cent.
Since 2000, this has increased the global sea level by 0.7 inches (1.8cm) – making glaciers the second biggest contributor to the rising ocean.
Likewise, these staggering losses have turned glaciers into the most rapidly vanishing reserves of ice anywhere on the planet.
Over the last quarter of a decade, glaciers have lost 18 per cent more ice than the Greenland Ice Sheet and more than double the amount lost in Antarctica.
And the researchers say that this process is only likely to get faster and more out of control as the climate continues to warm.
Dr Samuel Nussbaumer, a glaciologist at the University of Zurich and project manager of the study, says: ‘Our observations and recent modelling studies indicate that glacier mass loss will continue and possibly accelerate until the end of this century.’
A new study warns that the world’s glaciers are melting so quickly that they release 273 billion tonnes of ice into the oceans each year. Pictured: Satellite images of the Scott (left), Sheridan (middle), and Childs (right) glaciers in Alaska
Under the coordination of the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGS), 35 teams of scientists from around the world combined 233 estimates of glacier mass changes.
These estimates included satellite observations gathered by the European Space Agency and measurements taken by dedicated researchers on the ground.
Together, they provide an extremely comprehensive view of how rapidly the world’s glaciers have been melting.
In 2010, glaciers covered an area of 272,287 square miles (705,221 kilometres squared) and contained 121,728 billion tonnes of ice.
However, by 2023, glaciers had released a total of 6,542 tonnes of ice into the ocean.
That equates to yearly losses of 237 billion tonnes of ice, which increases global sea levels by 0.03 inches (0.75mm) each year on average.
This means that melting glaciers are a bigger contributor to sea level rises than the melting of the Greenland or Antarctic Ice sheets.
The study found that only the warming of the ocean contributed more to rising sea levels between 2000 and 2023.
Earth’s glaciers have shrunk by five per cent on average but the losses have been close to 40 per cent in some regions such as central Europe and the Middle East
Dr Inés Dussaillant, a glaciologist from the University of Zurich who was involved in the analysis, says: ‘When it comes to sea-level rise, the Arctic and Antarctic regions with their much larger glacier areas are the key players.
‘Almost one-quarter of the glacier contribution to sea-level rise originates from Alaska.’
As this trend continues, it could flood low-lying coastal areas like Florida and increase the risk posed by storm surges.
A recent study conducted by Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, predicted that global sea levels could rise by a staggering 6.2ft (1.9 metres) by 2100 if carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions continue to increase.
If global sea levels were to rise by 6.2ft (1.9 metres), towns and cities around the world could be plunged underwater – including Hull, London, and Cardiff.
However, the researchers note that increasing sea levels is not the only problem that glacial melting creates.
Dr Dussaillant says: ‘Glaciers are vital freshwater resources, especially for local communities in Central Asia and Central Andes, where glaciers dominate runoff during warm and dry seasons.’
Yet the researchers found that glaciers in the Southern Andes have lost 12.8 per cent of their mass while those in ‘high mountain Asia’ have lost 8.8 per cent since 2000.
By combining over 230 satellite and field studies, the researchers found that the world’s glaciers have lost 6,542 tonnes of ice since 2000, contributing 1.8cm to rising sea levels. This satellite image shows blue glaciers on the reddish ground of the Franz Josef Land archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. The lack of white snow cover suggests that there has been a significant mass loss
Some glaciers, such as the Golubin Glacier in Kyrgyzstan (pictured), provide a vital source of freshwater. As glaciers retreat this risks cutting off a vital source of water for many people around the world
Leader of the study Professor Michael Zemp, from the University of Zurich, says: ‘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.’
For the communities that rely on glacial meltwater to live, rapidly melting glaciers threaten to cut off the supply of this vital resource in the future.
The researchers say their findings should act as a new baseline to measure the progress of the world’s climate targets and as a point of reference for future studies.
Dr Stephen Plummer, a researcher from the European Space Agency, says: ‘These findings are not only crucial for advancing our scientific understanding of global glacier changes, but also provide a valuable baseline to help regions address the challenges of managing scarce freshwater resources and contribute to developing effective mitigation strategies to combat rising sea level.’
