World glaciers melt faster than ever recorded

World glaciers melt faster than ever recorded under the influence of climate change, according to the most extensive scientific analysis.

Mountain glaciers – frozen ice rivers – act as a freshwater resource for millions of people around the world and lock enough water to increase the global sea level by 32 cm (13 in) if completely scattered.

But from the turn of the century, they lost more than 6,500 billion tons – or 5% – their ice.

And the pace of melting is increasing. Over the past decade, the losses of glaciers have been more than a third larger than in the period 2000 to 2011.

The study combined more than 230 regional estimates from 35 research teams around the world, making scientists even more confident about how fast glaciers melt and how they would develop in the future.

The glaciers are excellent indicators of climate change.

In the stable climate, they remain about the same size, getting so much ice through the snowfall as much as they lose by melting.

But the glaciers have decreased almost everywhere in the last 20 years because temperatures have increased due to human activities, mainly fossil fuel fuels.

Between 2000 and 2023, glaciers outside the main ice leaves of Greenland and Antarctica lost an average of about 270 billion tons of ice a year.

These numbers are not easy to bypass the head. Thus, Michael Zemp, director of the World Ledel Supervisory Services and the leading author of the study, uses analogy.

270 billion tons of ice lost in one year “replies [water] Consumption of the entire global population in 30 years, assuming 3 liters per person and day, “he told BBC News.

The rate of change in some regions was particularly extreme. Central Europe, for example, lost 39% of her ice ice in just over 20 years.

Novelty of this study, Published in Nature magazineIsn’t it so discovered that glaciers melt faster and faster – we already knew that. Instead, his strength lies in gathering evidence from the entire research community.

There are different ways of assessing how glaciers change, from measurements on the ground to different types of satellite data. Each has its advantages and disadvantages.

For example, direct measurements of glaciers provide very detailed information, but are only available for a small part of more than 200,000 glaciers around the world.

By systematically combining these different approaches, scientists can be much safer about what’s going on.

These community estimates are vital because they give people confidence to take advantage of their discoveries, “said Andy Shepherd, head of the Department of Geography and the Environment at Northumbia University, who was not the author of a recent study.

“This includes other climatic scientists, governments and industry, plus, of course, all who are concerned about the influence of global warming.”

The glaciers need time to fully respond to a variable climate – depending on their size, anywhere between the years and many decades.

This means that it will continue to melt in the years ahead.

But what is crucial, the amount of ice lost by the end of the century will be strongly dependent on how much humanity continues to heat the planet by release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

This could be a difference between the loss of a quarter of the world’s glacier, if global climatic goals are filled, and almost half if warming is uncontrolled, the study warns.

“Every tenth of the heating degree we can avoid will save some glaciers and will save us from great damage,” explained Prof.

These consequences go beyond local changes of landscapes and ecosystems – or “what happens on the glacier does not remain there,” as Prof. Zemp.

Hundreds of millions of people around the world are relying on a seasonal ledenjak hostage to some extent, which act like giant tanks to help double the population of drought. When the glaciers disappear, so do their water supply.

And there are global consequences. Even a seemingly small increase in the global level of the sea-oD of mountain glaciers, the main ice leaves of Greenland and Antarctic and warmer ocean waters that occupy more space-it is significantly increased the frequency of coastal floods.

“Each inch of the sea level increase, another 2 million people are discovering annual floods somewhere on our planet,” said Prof. Shepherd.

The global sea levels have already increased by more than 20 cm (8in) since 1900, and about half of it has been coming from the early 1990s, and increased faster in the decades ahead.