Disappearing glaciers ‘now second largest contributor to sea level rise’
2 Mar 2025
Glacier loss in central Europe was nearly 40% during this century, suggests a study by Belgium’s Vrije Universiteit Brussel.
Professor Harry Zekollari’s team at VUB’s department of water and climate disclosed that an average of 273 billion tonnes of ice has been lost annually since the year 2000.
But writing in the journal Nature he disclosed that the overall figure obscured the fact that losses for the second decade showed “an alarming increase”.
Over the entire period from 2000-2023, glaciers accounted for some 0.75 millimetres of sea-level rise he added.
At the turn of the century, excluding the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets, the world’s glaciers spanned c700,000 km2, containing an estimated 120,000 billion tonnes of ice.
In 22 years to 2023, they lost 5% of total volume or 273 billion tonnes, said the scientists. Within this period, however, losses for the second half (2012-2023) increased 36% over the previous 2000-2011 period.
“Glacier mass loss over the whole study period was 18% higher than that of the Greenland Ice Sheet and more than double that of the Antarctic Ice Sheet,” said the university statement.
The research was conducted under the auspices of the Glacier Mass Balance Intercomparison Exercise (GlaMBIE).
It gathered data from field measurements and optical, radar, laser and gravimetry satellite missions, with satellite observations from the US Terra/ASTER and ICESat-2, the US–German GRACE, Germany’s TanDEM-X and ESA’s CryoSat missions.
Professor Zekollari said glaciers were now the second largest contributor to global warming after ocean warming related thermal expansion, exceeding the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.
“The largest part of the glacier contribution comes from polar regions, where the largest ice masses are located,” said Zekollari.
“The loss from mid-latitude high-mountain regions in turn strongly affects regional freshwater resources. For context, the ice lost from glaciers on an annual basis corresponds to what the entire global population consumes over three decades”.
