Story at a glance
- A new study published in the journal Nature analyzed 20 years of data on the world’s 220,000 mountain glaciers.
- The world’s mountain glaciers have lost a combined 328 billion tons of snow and ice each year since 2015.
- This was the first study to use 3D satellite imagery to analyze all of Earth’s glaciers.
Satellite measurements of the world’s mountain glaciers show them melting at a faster rate, losing 31 percent more snow and ice every year than they were 15 years ago, and according to scientists, human-propelled climate change is to blame.
Published in a study in the journal Nature, scientists analyzed 20 years of data that was recently declassified and found that since 2015, the world’s 220,000 mountain glaciers have lost a combined 328 billion tons of snow and ice each year.
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This marked the first study to use 3D satellite imagery to analyze all of Earth’s glaciers.
Romain Hugonnet, a glaciologist at ETH Zurich who led the study, calculated that from 2015 through 2019 the annual melt rate had grown, losing 78 billion more tons per year than from 2000 to 2004.
While almost all of the world’s glaciers are melting, half of the loss comes from the United States and Canada. Hugonnet said the global loss “mirrors the global increase in temperature” and is the direct result of the widespread use of coal, oil and gas.
“Ten years ago, we were saying that the glaciers are the indicator of climate change,” said Michael Zemp, World Glacier Monitoring Service director. “But now actually they’ve become a memorial of the climate crisis.”
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