According to estimates From the United States Geological Service (USGS), glaciers, along with the permanent ice layer and snow, house more than 24 million cubic kilometers of water. This represents 1.74% of the total water on the planet, but also 68.7% of fresh water. The risk of losing these reservations is growing.
273,000 million tons. A new study in which the European Space Agency (That) has revealed the rhythm at which the glaciers of our planet have been losing water since 2000. The figures are not hopeful: our glaciers have lost 273,000 million tons of water per year on average.
“To put this in perspective, the 273,000 million tons lost annually represent what the world’s population consumes in 30 years, assuming (a consumption of) three liters per person and day,” Indicate in a press release Michael Zemp.
Another way of seeing it in perspective is to take into account that the glaciers of this planet, according to the agency itself, contained approximately 121.73 billion tons of ice. During the last decades the glaciers have seen a 5% drop in their volume.
In crescendo. The team has also warned that the rhythm at which we lose ice has been growing throughout the study period. The study covered the period between 2000 and 2023 and was divided into two subperiods: 2000–2011 and 2012–2023. Comparing both periods the team found an acceleration in the rhythm at which glaciers lose water: in the second period the loss of ice was 36% greater than in the first.
The geographical context also matters. If we previously indicated that, globally, the glaciers had lost 5% of their volume, regional losses are among 2% observed in the Antarctic and Subantarctic Islands, and 39% loss of volume observed in Central Europe.
The image shows diversity in the portion of lost glaciers in different regions. ESA/Planetary Visions
GLAMBIE. The investigation has been carried out within the framework of the Glambie project (Glacier Mass Balance Intercomparison Exercise), An initiative of the WGMS (World Glacier Monitoring Service) of the University of Zurich in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh and the Earthwave company dedicated to estimate the global ice mass lost by the glaciers.
The initiative generated a temporary series for the study period (2000-2023) combining data from different sources. Among them they used satellite observations of the Aster instrument aboard the American Mission Terra and ICESAT-2also from NASA; in combination with data obtained from European and Euro -Eastern Missions Grace, Tandem-X and Cryosat.
The details of the study have been published In an article In the magazine Nature.
It is not just sea level. This loss of ice has a well -known plenty of involvement: the nearly 6.55 billion tons of disappeared water from the glaciers have ended melted in the sea, which, according to equipment estimates, has contributed to the increase in the level of the waters in about 18 millimeters, about 0.75 mm per year.
However, although the increase in sea level is often the “visible face” of climate change, the problem goes further. And it is that glaciers are an important water reserve. Its thaw contributes significantly to the flow of many rivers. This is the case of the Ebro, which feeds on the glaciers of the Pyrenees in addition to the thaw of mountains in the Cantabrian mountain range and the Iberian system.
“Glaciers are a vital source of fresh water, especially in local communities in Central Asia and the central Andes, where glaciers dominate runoff during warm and dry stations,” also explains in the press release Inés Dussaillant, co -author of the study.
In Xataka | The fresh water from the planet disappears, something that can also be perceived from space
Image | The glaciers of the Chugach mountains, in Alaska. Copernicus Sentinel-2