Glaciers are melting much faster than expected, study finds

A new study indicates that the speed of glacier melt has “doubled over the past two decades” – far faster than anticipated or previously measured.

In the study, published in the journal Nature, the authors utilized multiple NASA satellite datasets dating back to 2000.

Obtaining accurate measurements of glacier melt, or glacier mass loss, has been difficult, the authors said. Glaciers are generally found in incredibly remote or inaccessible locations, meaning that only a few hundred of the over 200,000 glaciers are routinely monitored.

This September 2017 photo provided by researcher Brian Menounos shows the Klinaklini glacier in British Columbia, Canada. The glacier and the adjacent icefield have lost nearly 16 billion tons of snow and ice since 2000.

However, by utilizing the satellite datasets from NASA, they were able to show that glaciers lost roughly 5,073 gigatonnes of mass from 2000 to 2019 – or 11,180,000,000,000,000 pounds. That’s roughly the equivalent of 553,465,346 Eiffel Towers.

From 2000 to 2019, the rate of glacier melt accelerated from an estimated .36 meters per year to .69 meters per year, the authors wrote.

The western edge of the famed iceberg A-68 (TOP R), calved from the Larsen C ice shelf, is seen from NASA's Operation IceBridge research aircraft, near the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula region, on October 31, 2017, above Antarctica. The massive iceberg was measured at approximately the size of Delaware when it first calved in July. NASA's Operation IceBridge has been studying how polar ice has evolved over the past nine years and is currently flying a set of nine-hour research flights over West Antarctica to monitor ice loss aboard a retrofitted 1966 Lockheed P-3 aircraft. According to NASA, the current mission targets 'sea ice in the Bellingshausen and Weddell seas and glaciers in the Antarctic Peninsula and along the English and Bryan Coasts.' Researchers have used the IceBridge data to observe that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet may be in a state of irreversible decline directly contributing to rising sea levels. The National Climate Assessment, a study produced every 4 years by scientists from 13 federal agencies of the U.S. government, released a stark report November 2 stating that global temperature rise over the past 115 years has been primarily caused by 'human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases'. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

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In turn, the authors believe that glacier melt has contributed to an estimated 21% of sea level rise since 2000 – almost a quarter of an inch.

They discovered that the most rapid increase in glacier melt took place in Alaska, western Canada and the United States. In New Zealand, glaciers are believed to have melted at almost seven times the rate between 2015 and 2019 compared to the turn of the century.

Reduction in global glaciers is one of the most direct consequences of a warming planet and one of the key indicators of climate change, according to scientists. Although the authors did not study the cause of the glacier melting, they did indicate that the areas where glaciers shrunk experienced changes in long-term precipitation and temperature, which are consistent with climate change.

In calculating the glacier melt rates, the 11 authors wrote that they hope it contributes to more accurate projections for sea level rise and water management.