bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

sponsorType

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Associated Press

Glaciers are melting faster, losing 31 per cent more snow and ice per year than they did 15 years earlier, according to three-dimensional satellite measurements of all the world’s mountain glaciers.
Scientists blame human-caused climate change.
Using 20 years of recently declassified satellite data, scientists calculated that the world’s 220,000 mountain glaciers are losing more than 328 billion tons (298 billion metric tons) of ice and snow per year since 2015, according to a study in Wednesday’s journal Nature.
That is enough melt flowing into the world’s rising oceans to put Switzerland under almost 7.2 metres (24 feet) of water each year.
Was climate change to blame for India’s glacier flood disaster?
The annual melt rate from 2015 to 2019 is 78 billion more tons (71 billion metric tons) a year than it was from 2000 to 2004.
Global thinning rates, different than volume of water lost, doubled in the last 20 years and “that’s enormous”, said Romain Hugonnet, a glaciologist at ETH Zurich and the University of Toulouse in France who led the study.
Half the world’s glacial loss is coming from the United States and Canada.
Alaska’s melt rates are “among the highest on the planet”, with the Columbia glacier retreating about 35 metres (115 feet) a year, Hugonnet said.


Almost all the world’s glaciers are melting, even ones in Tibet that used to be stable, the study found. Except for a few in Iceland and Scandinavia that are fed by increased precipitation, the melt rates are accelerating around the world.
The near-uniform melting “mirrors the global increase in temperature” and is from the burning of coal, oil and gas, Hugonnet said. Some smaller glaciers are disappearing entirely.
Two years ago, scientists, activists and government officials in Iceland held a funeral for a small glacier.
“Ten years ago, we were saying that the glaciers are the indicator of climate change, but now actually they’ve become a memorial of the climate crisis,” said World Glacier Monitoring Service Director Michael Zemp, who was not part of the study.
Indonesia’s ‘tropical glaciers’ could be gone within a decade
The study is the first to use this 3D satellite imagery to examine all of Earth’s glaciers not connected to ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctic.
Past studies either only used a fraction of the glaciers or estimated the loss of Earth’s glaciers using gravity measurements from orbit. Those gravity readings have large margins of error and aren’t as useful, Zemp said.
Ohio State University’s Lonnie Thompson said the new study painted an “alarming picture”.

Shrinking glaciers are a problem for millions of people who rely on seasonal glacial melt for daily water and rapid melting can cause deadly outbursts from glacial lakes in places like India, Hugonnet said.
But the largest threat is sea level rise. The world’s oceans are already rising because warm water expands and because of melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, but glaciers are responsible for 21 per cent of sea level rise, more than the ice sheets, the study said. The ice sheets are larger longer term threats for sea level rise.
“It’s becoming increasingly clear that sea level rise is going to be a bigger and bigger problem as we move through the 21st century,” said National Snow and Ice Data Center Director Mark Serreze.


As Indonesia faces ‘second tsunami’ after Sumatra floods, is Jakarta’s response enough?

How Hong Kong can distinguish itself as a climate finance hub

Chinese desalination plant makes fresh water cheaper than tap water – plus green hydrogen

India to pause coal power expansion beyond 2035 amid grid stress

Climate change

World’s glaciers melting faster than ever, with US and Canada hardest hit

Splinters of ice peel fall from the Perito Moreno glacier in southern Argentina. File photo: Reuters

Canada’s Klinaklini glacier and the adjacent icefield lost about 15 gigatons of water from 2000-2019, scientists say. Photo: Brian Menounos via AP

Himalayan glacier breaks in India, hitting dams and killing 14, with 170 missing

A hydropower plant worker raises his arms in joy after he was pulled out from beneath the ground during rescue operations after a portion of Nanda Devi glacier broke off in the Tapovan area. Photo: AP

A view shows damage after a Himalayan glacier broke and crashed into a dam at Raini Chak Lata village in Chamoli district, northern state of Uttarakhand, India, February 7, 2021. REUTERS/Stringer NO ARCHIVES. NO RESALES.

Indonesia has its own ‘tropical glaciers’. But climate change means they could be gone within a decade

Indonesia’s little-known glaciers are melting so fast they could disappear in a decade. Photo: AFP

This handout picture taken in November 2015 and received on December 13, 2019 from Global Atmosphere Watch shows a glacier on Indonesia's Puncak Jaya mountain range in Papua. - Indonesia's little-known glaciers are melting so fast they could disappear in a decade, a new study says, underscoring the imminent threat posed by climate change to ice sheets in tropical countries. (Photo by Handout / Global Atmosphere Watch / AFP) / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY CREDIT "AFP PHOTO / GLOBAL ATMOSPHERE WATCH" - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS ---

Climate change is causing Himalayan glaciers to melt twice as fast, research shows

A new study by US scientists says the rate at which Himalayan glaciers are melting has doubled over the past two decades. Photo: Alamy

This map made available by NASA in February 2019 shows global surface temperature anomalies for 2014-2018. Higher than normal temperatures are shown in red and lower than normal temperatures are shown in blue. Two U.S. agencies, the United Kingdom Met Office and the World Meteorological Organization analyzed global temperatures in slightly different ways, but each came to the same conclusion on Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2019: 2018 was the fourth-warmest year on record behind 2016, 2015 and 2017. (Kathryn Mersmann/NASA - Scientific Visualization Studio via AP)

DJ2W26 Karola Glacier icefield Tibet China. Image shot 10/2012. Exact date unknown. Photo:Alamy

News

World

United States & Canada

Europe


Glaciers are losing over 328 billion tons of ice and snow a year – enough melt flowing into oceans to put Switzerland under almost 24 feet of water annually
Some smaller glaciers are vanishing completely, as the burning of coal, oil and gas warms global temperatures, a scientist says



Glaciers are losing over 328 billion tons of ice and snow a year – enough melt flowing into oceans to put Switzerland under almost 24 feet of water annually.


Environment

United States

Canada

World’s glaciers melting faster than ever, with US and Canada hardest hit

Glaciers are losing over 328 billion tons of ice and snow a year – enough melt flowing into oceans to put Switzerland under almost 24 feet of water annually Some smaller glaciers are vanishing completely, as the burning of coal, oil and gas warms global temperatures, a scientist says

Glaciers are losing over 328 billion tons of ice and snow a year – enough melt flowing into oceans to put Switzerland under almost 24 feet of water annually

Some smaller glaciers are vanishing completely, as the burning of coal, oil and gas warms global temperatures, a scientist says