Academic News
Global glaciers are melting at an accelerating pace, reducing local freshwater resources and driving rapid sea-level rise. A multinational research collaboration, including Assistant Professor Zheng Whyjay and his research team from National Central University, recently published its findings in the prestigious journal Nature. The study reveals the escalating loss of global glacier mass and examines its impacts on sea-level rise and freshwater availability. This research, uniting 35 scientific teams worldwide, provides a detailed statistical analysis of glacier mass changes over the past 23 years.
According to the findings, since 2000, global glaciers have lost an average of approximately 273 billion tons of ice annually. In 2000, glaciers (excluding the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets) spanned 705,221 square kilometers and stored about 122 trillion tons of ice. However, over the past two decades, their total volume has decreased by roughly 5%, with regional losses ranging from 2% in the Antarctic and Subantarctic islands to a striking 39% in Central Europe.
Notably, the study found that the rate of glacier loss has accelerated significantly since 2010. Between 2012 and 2023, the volume of ice lost increased by 36% compared to the 2000–2011 period. Throughout the study period, glaciers lost 18% more ice than the Greenland Ice Sheet and more than twice the amount lost by the Antarctic Ice Sheet.
The study is part of the GlaMBIE project, an international research initiative funded primarily by the European Space Agency’s Science for Society program and supported by the International Association for Cryospheric Sciences and various institutional partners. Conducted by the GlaMBIE team and led by the World Glacier Monitoring Service (based at the University of Zurich) and the University of Edinburgh, the project involved collaboration with Earthwave Inc. and 35 research teams worldwide.
“Benefiting from the different observation methods, Glambie not only provides new insights into regional trends and year-to-year variability, but we could also identify differences among observation methods. This means that we can provide a new observational baseline for future studies on the impact of glacier melt on regional water availability and global sea-level rise,” explained Michael Zemp, who co-led the study.
Zheng Whyjay emphasized that beyond quantifying global glacier loss, the study aims to raise awareness within all the research participants' local communities about the effects of global warming. In Taiwan, he hopes the findings will underscore the urgency of carbon reduction and climate action. As the project progresses, the team will continue to investigate regional variations in glacier loss. This research marks a significant milestone in the United Nations International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation and the upcoming Decade of Action for Cryospheric Sciences (2025–2034).
For more details, please refer to the article in Nature: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08545-z.
