The World's Glaciers

[Blessed Weather]

Mountain glaciers (1980–2017)

Based on the preliminary data, 2017, is likely to be the 38^th year in a row of mass loss of mountain glaciers worldwide. According to the State of the Climate in 2017, “The cumulative mass balance loss from 1980 to 2016 is -19.9 meters, the equivalent of cutting a 22-meter-thick (72-foot-thick) slice off the top of the average glacier."

Graph of yearly loss 1980 - 2017:

Full report: https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/state-climate-highlights/2017

[carinthian]

8 hours ago, Blessed Weather said:

Mountain glaciers (1980–2017)

Based on the preliminary data, 2017, is likely to be the 38^th year in a row of mass loss of mountain glaciers worldwide. According to the State of the Climate in 2017, “The cumulative mass balance loss from 1980 to 2016 is -19.9 meters, the equivalent of cutting a 22-meter-thick (72-foot-thick) slice off the top of the average glacier."

Graph of yearly loss 1980 - 2017:

Full report: https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/state-climate-highlights/2017

Malcolm, I go every summer to see our local glacier , The Pasterze and have literally watched retreat before my own eyes. Since 2014 it has retreated 2.5km. Still in the region of 275m at its thickest point. A strange fact about global warming is the increase measurements of winter snowfall depth at highest elevation ( 3000m). The question I ponder is, increased mass due to extra weight of winter snowfall should in effect act as an inertia on the glacier , but in reality the end result still shows a retreating glacier. Not nice to witness and in common with many other glacier recording in the Austrian Alps.

c

[Blessed Weather]

22 hours ago, carinthian said:

Malcolm, I go every summer to see our local glacier , The Pasterze and have literally watched retreat before my own eyes. Since 2014 it has retreated 2.5km. Still in the region of 275m at its thickest point. A strange fact about global warming is the increase measurements of winter snowfall depth at highest elevation ( 3000m). The question I ponder is, increased mass due to extra weight of winter snowfall should in effect act as an inertia on the glacier , but in reality the end result still shows a retreating glacier. Not nice to witness and in common with many other glacier recording in the Austrian Alps.

c

Hi Paul. I'm afraid the biggest losses are taking place in our very own Alps. This from the full report:

"Mass losses were especially dramatic in the European Alps, where 9 reference glaciers from Austria, France, Italy, and Switzerland, had an average mass loss of 1,664 millimeters of water equivalent (5.5 feet)."

And the situation is getting worse:

"The report also notes that mass loss from mountain glaciers is accelerating each decade: -228 millimeters of water equivalent (9 inches) in the 1980s, -443 millimeters (17 inches) in the 1990s, -676 millimeters (27 inches) in the 2000s, and -896 millimeters (35 inches) for 2010–2017."

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/featured-images/2017-state-climate-mountain-glaciers

[carinthian]

1 hour ago, Blessed Weather said:

Hi Paul. I'm afraid the biggest losses are taking place in our very own Alps. This from the full report:

"Mass losses were especially dramatic in the European Alps, where 9 reference glaciers from Austria, France, Italy, and Switzerland, had an average mass loss of 1,664 millimeters of water equivalent (5.5 feet)."

And the situation is getting worse:

"The report also notes that mass loss from mountain glaciers is accelerating each decade: -228 millimeters of water equivalent (9 inches) in the 1980s, -443 millimeters (17 inches) in the 1990s, -676 millimeters (27 inches) in the 2000s, and -896 millimeters (35 inches) for 2010–2017."

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/featured-images/2017-state-climate-mountain-glaciers

Its horrible to witness. The facts speak for themselves. Not that Trump/ Putin ect give a toss and continues to push the extensive burning of fossil fuels to the extreme ( Global Warming ) but that's another subject but must be in the equation for the rapid retreat of Glaciers . Europe cannot reduce Carbon emissions of their own. The Russian icebreakers continue a red hot pursuit for more oil exploitation of the Arctic Ocean,  Sad.

C

C

[knocker]

Unprecedented ice loss in Russian ice cap

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-09/uoca-uil091918.php

[knocker]

Latest glacier mass balance data

https://wgms.ch/latest-glacier-mass-balance-data/

[Guest]

GLOBAL GLACIAL ICE REPORT - INCLUDING GLACIERS, ICE CAPS AND ICE SHEETS

I told Malcolm @Blessed Weather back in August that I intended to do a post on global glacial ice (on the US forum that I often use and would cross-post it on to the appropriate NetWx thread) and he posted a useful chart showing the cumulative glacial ice loss since 1980 (on both forums too).  I quote his post from August 17th below which appears at the top of this page. I wrote my (very long) post with both UK and US audiences in mind. 

On 27/08/2018 at 09:11, Blessed Weather said:

Mountain glaciers (1980–2017)

Based on the preliminary data, 2017, is likely to be the 38^th year in a row of mass loss of mountain glaciers worldwide. According to the State of the Climate in 2017, “The cumulative mass balance loss from 1980 to 2016 is -19.9 meters, the equivalent of cutting a 22-meter-thick (72-foot-thick) slice off the top of the average glacier."

Graph of yearly loss 1980 - 2017:

Full report: https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/state-climate-highlights/2017

Well, following a number of distractions on the hurricane, teleconnections and other forum threads (in the US and in the UK) as well as my more recent posts and updates on the Arctic, Antarctica and Greenland, I am finally getting around to it!

We often hear news reports that the world's glaciers are retreating so quickly that most of them will disappear during the course of this century and many within the next 20 to 30 years. Some of this "may" be partly exaggerated by those at one extreme of the global warming and climate change debate and, at the other extreme, climate change deniers might argue that these are temporary or mostly naturally occurring changes.  As I've said repeatedly on both forums, I want to endeavour to remove the hype and take a balanced and measured approach, so in this report I want to look at many of the facts about global glacial ice. I will draw data and information from quite a range of sources and this has been much harder than I would have thought. There is such an array of data and some very inconsistent analyses and quite a few misleading charts and statements. There are monitoring sites on many glaciers and ice sheets, satellite data is invaluable and some figures are best estimates based on photographic evidence.  Some of these records are quite out of date but I have tried to pull together information based on measurements taken in the last few years but some data goes back to 2006 which I only use for comparison purposes. Therefore I shall include the date (alongside each fact or chart) where ever possible and when it's relevant.  Whenever any of us find much more current data in place of the early data I will be more than happy to see this. In due course, a full update can be done by me or anyone who is interested in this fascinating topic. I feel that a good way to approach this now will be for me to run through a series of facts and figures which can be discussed in follow up posts by any of us. I include some basic descriptions too for those who are just beginning to learn about this. With so many statistics and facts, there are bound to be a few inaccuracies and typos and please point out any more serious blunders as it most certainly is not my intention to misleading anyone is this critically important field.

Please note that in this post I am referring to all "glacial ice" which includes mountain and valley glaciers, tidewater glaciers, ice caps, ice shelves and ice sheets (especially Antarctica and Greenland). 

• About 10 percent of the Earth is covered in "land ice" with glacial ice, including glaciers, ice caps, and the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica (NSIDC 2018).
• This area is covered by about 15 million square kilometers of glacial ice.
• To be termed a glacier it must be a minimum size of 0.1 square kilometers (or 25 acres).
•  99% of glacial ice is contained within vast ice sheets (also known as "continental glaciers") in the polar regions. 
• There are about 198,000 glaciers in the world, covering 726,000 square kilometers (June 2017).
• It is difficult to identify and measure very small glaciers (from snow fields) which are under 0.1 square kilometers, these are called "glacierets".
• If glacierets are included, the number of glaciers in the World would be around 400,000 but still only 1.4% of the World’s glacierised area.
• The region with the most ice is the Antarctic and Subantarctic with 14 million square kilometers.
• The Antarctica ice sheets contains 30 million cubic kilometers of ice or about 90% of the Earth's total ice mass! 
• Antartica glaciers (excluding the main ice sheet) have an estimated 132,000 square kilometers of ice. 
• Second is the North Canadian Arctic with 104,000 square kilometers of glacial ice (excluding the ice caps there).
• On the other hand, New Zealand has only 1,160 square kilometers of glacial ice.
• In total, 44% of the World’s glacierised area (not sea ice) is in the combined Arctic regions and 18% is in the Antarctic and Subantarctic (excluding ice sheets).
• Glaciers (excluding ice sheets etc) cover 0.5% of the Earth’s land surface.
• The Little Ice Age from about 1550 to 1850 with lower global temperatures than today saw most glaciers and ice sheets expand.
• The period from 1850 to 1940, saw a warming global climate with a widespread retreat.
• This was reversed temporarily between 1950 and 1980 as global temperatures cooled slightly.
• Since 1980, a significant global warming has led to glacier retreat becoming increasingly rapid and some glaciers have disappeared altogether.
• The glacier retreat into the Rockies, the Andes and the Himalayan ranges has the potential to affect water supplies in those areas.
• An ice sheet is a mass of glacier ice that covers surrounding terrain and is greater than 50,000 square kilometers and is also known as "continental glacier".
• The Antarctic ice sheet is effectively a glacier and has existed for at least 40 million years. Smaller glaciers break away from the main ice sheet.
• Antarctic ice is up to 3 miles thick in some areas. 
• The largest individual glacier in the world is the Lambert-Fisher Glacier in Antarctica at about 250 miles long and 60 miles wide.

Ice Flow Map: This map produced in 2011 shows ice movement in 1996, 2000 & 2006. The colors indicate the speed of the ice flow: purple/red is fast; green is slower. This velocity map is derived from synthetic aperture radar and overlaid on a Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) mosaic image of Antarctica.        

• Since 2006 Antarctica has seen increased snowfall and ice gains in some years - with increased ice flow in recent years, we need a later comparison..

 

Antarctic ice velocity in 2015 and the velocity change between 2008 and 2015. The mosaic of the Antarctic ice velocity (2015) from L8 panchromatic images from January 2015 to March 2016 is shown here overlaid on a MODIS mosaic of Antarctica (MOA)34,35. The magnitude of the ice velocity is coloured on a logarithmic scale and overlaid on gridded potential seawater temperature data (PTM) at a depth of 200 m from the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE). The velocity changes at grounding lines are calculated for 466 glaciers between 2015 and 2008 and are shown for 211 glaciers with high confidence levels (>2 σσ), which are coloured on a logarithmic scale. The names of selected glaciers and ice shelves are labelled. ‘A’ through ‘F’ delimits the six oceanic sectors. The details of ice velocity changes along grounding lines are presented in Table S1. The solid grey lines delineate major ice divides. This map was created using The Generic Mapping Tools version. 

• Antarctica's ice velocity is at its highest and accelerating the fastest close to the coast where ice bergs and shelves break off.
• The Ross Ice Shelf and Ronne Ice Shelf and a few small ice shelves are moving much more quickly than the majority of the land mass ice. 

2017 Map: Antarctica has 15 major ice shelf areas, and 10 of the largest appear in this map. Most of these ice shelves are glacier-fed, but ice formed from direct snowfall accumulation is a significant part of all permanent ice shelves.

• Glaciers usually take centuries to develop but can retreat and melt much more quickly. Ice melt is seasonal and varies considerably from year to year.

• Once glacial ice begins to break down, the interaction of melt water with the glacier's structure can cause increasingly fast melting and retreat.

• Glaciers have white surfaces that reflect the sun's rays. As glaciers melt darker surfaces are exposed which absorb heat raising temperatures even more.

• Greenland's ice sheet has an area of 1.7 million square kilometers, an average thickness of 2.3 kilometers and holds 7 percent of the world's freshwater.

• If Greenland's glaciers and ice sheet melted completely, global sea level would increase by up to 7 meters (23 feet).

• Contrary to popular belief Greenland's glacier retreat was much faster in the early 20th century than it is now (confirmed by my recent Greenland post)

• Glaciers are found in 47 countries.

This figure shows the global distribution of glaciers. The diameter of the circle shows the area covered. The area covered by tidewater glaciers is shown in blue. The numbers refer to each RGI region (shown in the table below):

This table dates back to 2012 and ice extent figures have changed since then but it does give us a good idea of global ice distribution for comparative purposes.

Area-Altitude distributions for each of the RGI regions. The top figure is the distribution of regional glacierised area with altitude. The lower figure is the distribution of normalised area with normalised altitude. The dotted lines are idealised approximations; the triangle is for mountain glaciers, the curved line is for ice caps. Source:  Pfeffer et al., 2014.

• Most of the World’s glaciers lie below 2000 m above sea level and most of the glacierised area is in the mid-elevation ranges (see charts above)
• Antarctica has many low-lying tidewater glaciers near the coast has a large amount of low-lying ice.
• In contrast the North Canadian Arctic has many ice caps on high-elevation plateaus.
• The distribution of glacier area with altitude is important, as it means that different areas will respond to climate change in very different ways.
• Glaciers store about 75 percent of the world's fresh water.
• If all land ice melted, sea level would rise approximately 70 meters (230 feet) worldwide.

Current contributions of glaciers and ice sheets to global sea level rise. From the IPCC AR5 Working Group 1 (Ref. 13) 2014

• During the maximum point of the last ice age, glaciers covered about 32 percent of the total land area.
• In the United States, glaciers cover over 75,000 square kilometers, with most of the glaciers located in Alaska.
• There are 616 officially named glaciers in Alaska and about 100,000 unnamed glaciers (estimated in November 2017 - far more than recorded previously)
• North America's longest glacier is the Bering Glacier in Alaska, measuring 190 kilometers (118 miles) long and the ice covers nearly 2,000 square miles.
• The Bering Glacier has retreated by 8 miles since 2004 but does have short (annualised) growth periods too - this image was taken in August 2004 

NASA Earth Observatory's Image of the Day for Aug 3, 2004:Image description: Bering Glacier

• Not all glaciers are declining; in some areas global warming produces much higher snowfall and this can exceed the ice melt or loss - the proportions above from this 2009 chart still apply now.
• The Hubbard Glacier in Alaska has been steadily advancing for over 100 years and is accumulating mass near its origin faster than it's losing it in the ocean.(June 2015).
• The Kutiah Glacier in Pakistan holds the record for the fastest glacial surge. In 1953, it raced more than 7 miles in three months, averaging about 367 feet per day.
• Tidewater glaciers are valley glaciers that flow down to the ocean and often calve small icebergs. Taku Glacier winds through the coastal mountains of SE Alaska (photo below). 

After flowing for 55 kilometers (34 miles), the glacier terminates in Taku Bay near Juneau, Alaska 

• Valley glaciers are really mountain glaciers that carve their way through mountain valleys and enlarge them.
• The "Great Aletsch Glacier" in Valais, Switzerland is a valley glacier and the longest glacier in the Alps at 23 kilometers. 

• The Aletsch Glacier covers an area of 81.7 square kilometers, has a volume of 15.4 cubic kilometers and declined by 3 kilometers since 1880.
• Around 400 billions tons of glacier is lost ever year (NASA 2017).
• The US Glacier national Park in Montana has lost 124 glaciers in the last 100 years with just 26 remaining (US Independent, May 2017)

  

Source:  CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1168903  (2006)

Global glacial mass balance in the last fifty years, reported to the WGMS and NSIDC. The increasing downward trend in the late 1980s is symptomatic of the increased rate and number of retreating glaciers.

• Over the past two billion years there have been at least five main ice ages. The last one spanned from 2.6 million years ago to the present day (see below)
• That statement is hotly disputed and most climatologists say that the last ice age ended around 10,000 years ago.
• It is believed the earth has seen much warmer periods between previous ices age than we have now and these lasted for up to 10,000 years.

The post has ended up much longer than I expected  but I wanted to get the facts out there, so that many of us can debate them on this thread, the climate change thread or elsewhere. It presented one of my toughest challenges ever with so much conflicting data and reports around with huge inconsistencies. Frankly, there's enough material out there for anyone to support an argument at either extreme of the climate change and global warming debate. I have tried as hard as possible to retain a thoroughly balanced approach as well as my sanity while researching all of this. I have saved nearly 50 new papers and presentations related to this topic and added them to my store.  I'll be very busy adding them steadily to the Research Portal.  Malcolm @Blessed Weather, Zac @Snowyhibbo and I developed my library idea over there with a lot of support from the US forum where we have full editing rights. Here's a link to the index page:  https://www.33andrain.com/topic/996-index-to-papers-and-articles/    You'll find loads of papers and presentations on many topics including Arctic Ice Cover, Arctic Amplification, Antarctica, Climate Change and so many more.  We're adding new material all the time and there is something for everyone with simple learner's guides through to much more technical stuff.  From the index, click on any title and that will take you to the abstract or summary.  Then you can decide if you want to read the full paper or view the presentation video and there's a direct link provided.   David   

EDIT: Having quoted so many statistics it's possible (in fact likely) that I've made a few errors.  I just spotted one which should have said 14 million square kilometers of ice rather than 14,000 - now that would be a pretty significant loss  Please draw any errors to my attention - that would be greatly appreciated. 

Edited November 3, 2018 by Guest
check links are working and correct typos

[knocker]

Study: Peru’s Quelccaya Ice Cap Could Meet its Demise by Mid-2050s

One of the world’s largest tropical glaciers is rapidly shrinking due to warming temperatures

Quote

ALBANY, N.Y. (Oct. 31, 2018) – If warming trends continue, Quelccaya, which until recently was the world’s largest tropical ice cap, will have reached a state of irreversible retreat by the mid-2050s, according to a new study led by UAlbany climate scientist Mathias Vuille and recent Ph.D. graduate Christian Yarleque.

Scientists have observed a shrinking of the Quelccaya ice cap, located in the Andes of Southern Peru, for decades. Though still bigger than nine thousand football fields, at an average altitude of about 18,000 feet, the ice cap’s total area has decreased by 31 percent in the last 30 years.

https://www.albany.edu/news/89011.php

[Methuselah]

8 minutes ago, knocker said:

Study: Peru’s Quelccaya Ice Cap Could Meet its Demise by Mid-2050s

One of the world’s largest tropical glaciers is rapidly shrinking due to warming temperatures

https://www.albany.edu/news/89011.php

Let's just hope, for the authors' sake, that there won't a solitary ice-patch remaining come January 1 2057?

[knocker]

An update on "Alpine glaciers: Another decade of loss"

Preliminary data reported from the reference glaciers of the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) in 2018 from Argentina, Austria, China, France, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Norway, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland and United States indicate that 2018 will be the 30th consecutive year of significant negative annual balance (> -200mm); with a mean balance of -1247 mm for the 25 reporting reference glaciers, with only one glacier reporting a positive mass balance (WGMS, 2018).

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2019/03/alpine-glaciers-another-decade-of-loss/

[knocker]

Global Glacier Mass Loss During the GRACE Satellite Mission (2002-2016)

Quote

Glaciers outside of the ice sheets are known to be important contributors to sea level rise. In this work, we provide an overview of changes in the mass of the world's glaciers, excluding those in Greenland and Antarctica, between 2002 and 2016, based on satellite gravimetry observations of the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE). Glaciers lost mass at a rate of 199 ± 32 Gt yr−1 during this 14-yr period, equivalent to a cumulative sea level contribution of 8 mm. We present annual mass balances for 17 glacier regions, that show a qualitatively good agreement with published estimates from in situ observations. We find that annual mass balance varies considerably from year to year, which can in part be attributed to changes in the large-scale circulation of the atmosphere. These variations, combined with the relatively short observational record, hamper the detection of acceleration of glacier mass loss. Our study highlights the need for continued observations of the Earth's glacierized regions.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feart.2019.00096/full

[knocker]

Repeat Photography Reveals How Glaciers Change Over Time

Photographic do-overs are showing scientists the ways our world is changing.

http://discovermagazine.com/2019/july/practice-makes-picture-perfect

[Methuselah]

Another alarming report, folks: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48696023

[knocker]

 

[knocker]

H/t Mauri Pelto

Quote

This milestone reflects the intensive research on #Cryosphere around the globe, and the intense melting, #climatechange, they have experienced leading to 32 consecutive years of alpine glacier mass balance loss.

https://wgms.ch/latest-glacier-mass-balance-data/

[knocker]

Glacier ice volume in Switzerland has decreased from about 70 to 50 cubic kilometres since year 2000. Red numbers show years with more than 2% ice volume loss. The frequency of such catastrophic years is obviously increasing... Also this summer has been hard for our glaciers.

https://twitter.com/matthias_huss

[knocker]

 

[Sky Full]

Not sure if this has been posted before but everyone should see this film at least once.  The world is definitely feeling the effects of climate change:

http://www.youtube.com/embed/hC3VTgIPoGU?rel=0>

 

[knocker]

Meltwater Intrusions Reveal Mechanisms for Rapid Submarine Melt at a Tidewater Glacier

Quote

Abstract

Submarine melting has been implicated as a driver of glacier retreat and sea level rise, but to date melting has been difficult to observe and quantify. As a result, melt rates have been estimated from parameterizations that are largely unconstrained by observations, particularly at the near‐vertical termini of tidewater glaciers. With standard coefficients, these melt parameterizations predict that ambient melting (the melt away from subglacial discharge outlets) is negligible compared to discharge‐driven melting for typical tidewater glaciers. Here, we present new data from LeConte Glacier, Alaska, that challenges this paradigm. Using autonomous kayaks, we observe ambient meltwater intrusions that are ubiquitous within 400 m of the terminus, and we provide the first characterization of their properties, structure, and distribution. Our results suggest that ambient melt rates are substantially higher (×100) than standard theory predicts and that ambient melting is a significant part of the total submarine melt flux. We explore modifications to the prevalent melt parameterization to provide a path forward for improved modeling of ocean‐glacier interactions.

Plain Language Summary

Tidewater glaciers discharge ice into the ocean through iceberg calving and submarine melting. Submarine melting has been implicated as a driver of glacier retreat and sea level rise, but melt rates have been difficult to directly observe and quantify. As a result, melt rates are typically estimated using a theory that has not been tested with observations at any tidewater glaciers. Two types of melting are expected at tidewater glaciers: Where subglacial discharge drains from outlets in the terminus, energetic upwelling plumes rise along the ice face, and theory predicts vigorous melting. Away from discharge outlets, weaker plumes form from ambient melting, and theory predicts that these ambient melt rates are effectively negligible compared to discharge‐driven melting. Here, we present new data from LeConte Glacier, Alaska, that challenges this paradigm. Using autonomous kayaks, we observe intrusions of meltwater—the product of ambient melt plumes—that are only found within 400 m of the terminus, and we provide the first characterization of their properties, structure, and distribution. Their ubiquity suggests that ambient melt rates are substantially higher than standard theory predicts and that ambient melting is a significant—but often neglected—part of the total submarine melt flux.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019GL085335

Press release

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-01/ru-sff012720.php

 

[knocker]

Global glacier retreat has accelerated

An international research team including scientists from ETH Zurich has shown that almost all the world’s glaciers are becoming thinner and losing mass’ and that these changes are picking up pace. The team’s analysis is the most comprehensive and accurate of its kind to date.

https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2021/04/pr-global-glacier-retreat-has-accelerated.html

[knocker]

Did you know about Artificial Glaciers?

There are several ways that we can classify glaciers. We can look at their shape, their size, their type of terminus, and many other features. A new characteristic has recently been gaining in popularity: artificiality. Yes, we now have a few artificial glaciers! Have you ever heard about them? They are glaciers whose behavior is directly influenced by human interventions in order to improve their condition and lengthen their existence. Are they sustainable or a tool to counteract the effects of climate change? Definitely not, let’s discover why!

Definition

An artificial glacier is defined as a glacier that, given its geographic and climatic context, should have already disappeared or drastically reduced but survives because of artificial conservation efforts. Another name for these glaciers could be economic glaciers because the efforts made to slow down their decline are only related to economic interests, such as the preservation of snow for ski and glacier tourism.

https://blogs.egu.eu/divisions/cr/2021/08/27/did-you-know-about-artificial-glaciers/

[knocker]

 

[knocker]

Showcasing the death of the world’s glaciers

By Audrey Payne

Among the mountains of evidence that climate change is warming Earth faster than any other point in recorded history is the fact that most glaciers around the world are shrinking or disappearing. Melting glaciers and ice sheets are already the biggest contributors to global sea level rise, and according to the World Glacier Monitoring Service, ice loss rates have increased each decade since 1970. Yet, of the approximately 200,000 glaciers in the world currently, no database exists to identify which glaciers have disappeared, and when. The Global Land Ice Measurements from Space (GLIMS) initiative, an international project designed to monitor the world's glaciers primarily using data from optical satellite instruments, aims to change that.

“Glaciers are indicators of climate change because they grow and shrink on longer timescales than rapidly changing weather, so they give a clearer signal about climate,” said Bruce Raup, a senior associate scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) and director of the GLIMS initiative. “We know that glaciers are disappearing, but we’ve had no way to show that to people. So, we are making an effort to document glaciers that have disappeared and approximately when they disappeared.”

https://nsidc.org/news-analyses/news-stories/showcasing-death-worlds-glaciers?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=earthdata-discovery-122023

[York-snow]

 

[Metwatch]

I guess this is still related to Glaciers as the article discusses snow cover duration over the Alps and how it's reducing in case anyone is still sceptical following discussions recently in the moans thread about lowering snow cover across Europe and Alps:

Recent waning snowpack in the Alps is unprecedented in the last six centuries

WWW.NATURE.COM

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Snow is an important component of the environment and climate of mountain regions, but providing a long-term historical context for recent changes is challenging. Here, the authors use ring-width data from...

Abstract:

Snow cover in high-latitude and high-altitude regions has strong effects on the Earth’s climate, environmental processes and socio-economic activities. Over the last 50 years, the Alps experienced a 5.6% reduction per decade in snow cover duration, which already affects a region where economy and culture revolve, to a large extent, around winter. Here we present evidence from 572 ring-width series extracted from a prostrate shrub (Juniperus communis L.) growing at high elevation in the Val Ventina, Italy. These ring-width records show that the duration of current snowpack cover is 36 days shorter than the long-term mean, a decline that is unprecedented over the last six centuries. These findings highlight the urgent need to develop adaptation strategies for some of the most sensitive environmental and socio-economic sectors in this region.

Edited February 24 by Metwatch