The glaciers around the world have lost 5% of their total volume in the last two decades, especially during the last ten years, a thaw that is depleting regional fresh water resources and accelerating the increase in sea level.
A new study, with the participation of 35 research teams, indicates that glaciers have been losing an average of 273,000 million tons of ice a year since 2000 and within that average “an alarming increase is hidden in the last 10 years” , indicates the European Space Agency (ESA).
To put it into perspective, those 273,000 million tons equals what the entire world population consumes in 30 years, assuming three liters per person and day, exemplified Michael Zemp, from the University of Zurich and co -director of a study published today Nature.
The glaciers are vital resources of fresh water, especially for the local communities of Central Asia and the Central Andes, where they dominate the runoff during the warm and dry stations, said Inés Dussalillant, also a signature of study and the same educational center.
In total, from 2000 to 2023, glaciers collectively lost 6,542 billion tons of ice and the amount of missing ice increased 36% in the second half of the study period (2012-2023) compared to the first half of the study ( 2000-2011).
Specifically, the loss went from 231,000 million tons per year in the first half of the period studied at 314,000 million in the second half.
In the year 2000, the glaciers – exchanged the continental ice layers of Greenland and the Antarctica – covered 705,221 square kilometers and contained about 121,728 million tons of ice.
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The real problem of glaciers loss
The investigation indicates that in the last 20 years they have lost approximately 5% of their total volume, with regional declines ranging from 2% in the Antarctic and Subantartical Islands and 39% in Central Europe.
The loss of glacier mass throughout the study period was 18% higher than that of the Greenland ice layer and more than double that of the Antarctic ice layer.
At present, glaciers are the second factor that contributes most to the increase in sea level, after the thermal expansion related to the warm -up of the oceans.
The annual average of total volume loss of glaciers (273,000 million tons) is equivalent to an annual sea level rise of 0.75 millimeters, while total loss (6,542 million tons) contributes 18 kilometers to the increase of the sea in the sea in everyone.
The study was conducted within the framework of the Intercomparration of Glacier Mass Balances (Glambie), a research initiative coordinated by the World Glacier Surveillance Service (WGMS), based at the University of Zurich.
The team coordinated the collection, standardization and analysis of different data from measurements on the ground and a wide variety of optical satellite missions, radar, laser and gravimetry.
Satellite observations included those of the American Missions Terra/Aster and Icesat-2, the American-German Grace, the German Tandem-X and the Cryosat de la ESA, among others.
“We collect 233 Estimates of the mass change of regional glaciers from about 450 data collaborators organized in 35 research teams,” Zemp explained.
With EFE information.
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