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ALL 19 OF the world’s glacier regions experienced a net loss of mass in 2024 for the third consecutive year, the United Nations said today, warning that saving the planet’s glaciers was now a matter of “survival”.
Five of the last six years have seen the most rapid glacier retreat on record, the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation weather, climate and water agency said, on the inaugural World Day for Glaciers.
“Preservation of glaciers is a not just an environmental, economic and societal necessity: it’s a matter of survival,” said WMO chief Celeste Saulo.
Beyond the continental ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, more than 275,000 glaciers worldwide cover approximately 700,000 square kilometres, said the WMO.
But they are rapidly shrinking due to climate change.
“The 2024 hydrological year marked the third year in a row in which all 19 glacier regions experienced a net mass loss,” the WMO added.
Together, they lost 450 billion tonnes of mass, the agency said, citing new data from the Swiss-based World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS).
It was the fourth worst year on record, with the worst being in 2023.
“From 2022-2024, we saw the largest three-year loss of glaciers on record,” said Saulo.
Glacier mass loss last year was relatively moderate in regions such as the Canadian Arctic and the peripheral glaciers of Greenland – but glaciers in Scandinavia, Norway’s Svalbard archipelago and North Asia experienced their worst year on record.
Based on a compilation of worldwide observations, the WGMS estimates that glaciers – separate from the continental ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica – have lost more than 9,000 billion tonnes since records began in 1975.
“This is equivalent to a huge ice block of the size of Germany with a thickness of 25 metres,” said WGMS director Michael Zemp.
At current rates of melting, many glaciers in western Canada and the United States, Scandinavia, central Europe, the Caucasus, New Zealand “will not survive the 21st century”, said the WMO.
The agency said that together with ice sheets, glaciers store around 70% of the world’s freshwater resources, with high mountain regions acting like the world’s water towers. If they disappear, that would threaten water supplies for millions of people downstream.
For the UN, the only possible response is to combat global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
“We can negotiate many things in the end, but we cannot negotiate physical laws like the melting point of ice,” said Stefan Uhlenbrook, the WMO’s water and cryosphere director.
He declined to comment on the return to office in January of US President Donald Trump, a climate change sceptic who has pulled the United States out of the landmark 2015 Paris climate accords.
However, Uhlenbrook said that “ignoring the problem” of climate change “is maybe convenient for a short period of time”, but “that will not help us to get closer to a solution”.
For the inaugural World Day for Glaciers, the WGMS named a US glacier as its first Glacier of the Year.
The South Cascade Glacier in Washington state has been monitored continuously since 1952 and provides one of the longest uninterrupted records of glaciological mass balance in the western hemisphere.
Unsure of what exactly is happening with the earth’s climate? Check out our FactCheck Knowledge Bank for essential reads and guides to finding good information online.
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Climate cult will be wetting themselves with excitement
Only the triple vaccinated believe this drivel, There are any number of peer reviewed scientific studies to the contrary. Time to stop the fear tactic.
@087 bed: “The vast majority of climate scientists agree that climate change is real and primarily caused by human activities. Studies consistently show that approximately 97% to over 99% of actively publishing climate scientists support this consensus, based on extensive peer-reviewed research. EG:a 2013 study by Cook et al. found that 97.1% of climate science papers taking a position endorsed the idea that human activities are driving global warming. More recent analyses, such as a 2021 study by Lynas et al., surveyed over 88,000 climate-related studies and concluded that more than 99.9% of peer-reviewed papers agree on human-driven climate change. This high level of agreement reflects decades of data from temperature records, ice core samples, and greenhouse gas measurements.”
@honey badger: he won’t understand. Too many words for him.
@Concerned Driver: Very true. Hopefully, others might…
@honey badger: yes, most of us who are not trolls will understand
@honey badger: incorrect, most scientists without influence know the climate around us is constantly evolving naturally and there is a human factor in increasing the rate of change ( which is minuscule), so certainly not “mostly” caused by humans. Níl tú chomh cliste.
@087 bed: How many and are they accepted by the wider scientific community? And are their authors in any way connected to big industry?
Go ahead and share some sources so we can assess for ourselves.
@Jack: Go n-íosfaidh an cat thú agus go n-íosfaidh an diabhal an cat. ;)
@honey badger: If something takes longer than a punchy catchphrase or 10 seconds (max) to explain, you are pissing into the wind with lads who think using ‘triple vaccinated’ is a sick burn.
@Jack: Please provide sources/articles/references for this claim.
@087 bed: brain damage is a consequence of covid, maybe you should have gotten your jabs
@Setanta O’Toole: pissing in the wind with that fella, regardless of the number of words used
@087 bed: where ignorance is bliss, tis folly to be wise.
@honey badger: 97 percent of scientists are funded by vested interests.
@honey badger: the all said too in the70s and 80s that in 10 years time a lot of costal cities will be flooded and uninhabitable. 40 years later there is literally no change. When there’s a huge amount of scaremongering like there has been over the years people become suspicious and doubtful especially when their previous predictions have failed to happen time and time again.
@honey badger: don’t bother. Scientific facts won’t convince brainwashed sheep
@honey badger: so who are your so called climate scientists??? Nobody knows who they are? This usual UN drivel shows up about every so often nobody listens the UN get rid of them.
@John: Where was that said? Who said it?
@honey badger: Blah blah blah…
@Ned: Their names are literally printed on the top of the Scientific papers they write.
More alarmism from the tree huggers.
@Marjory: when did FFFG become tree huggers?
@Jack: when there is money to be made,and taxes to tax
@Marjory: scientific fact= tree huggers? There is nothing common about sense
Glacier tax on the way.
Money is more important unfortunately. We’ll be gleefully counting fivers when the wave finally rolls over us.
@Thesaltyurchin: Does the glass overflow when the ice cube melts? No, the water level in the glass is unchanged. That’s because the volume of water displaced by the floating ice cube (the amount of the ice cube below water) is equal to the amount of water contained in the ice cube.
@Pól Pot: Most glaciers are currently above sea levels, so their water will feed the ocean, when it was till now retained as ice at higher altitude. But sea level rises are mostly caused by the increase in water temperatures globally.
@Pól Pot: we’re talking about glaciers not icebergs!
@Pól Pot: when the sky rains fire, when the earth crumbles beneath our feet, etc etc. choose your biblically fatalist weapon?… you’ll still be imagining that luxury yacht, we’re not able to imagine anything else. Money. Sit down.
@Thesaltyurchin: I’ll be in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. It’s you who’ll be left behind to face the trials and tribulations.
@Pól Pot: First of all, when water freezes it’s density is reduced and its volume increases by about 9%. In other words, it expands. However, because ice floats a small part is above the surface so when it melts the water level should stay the same.
Now, in the article it talks about continental ice, which is not floating, it’s on land in the form of glaciers. That’s different to sea ice.
Try this simple experiment at home to demonstrate the concept of melting continental ice compared to sea ice. Get two glasses and 2 ice cubes. Place one of the ice cubes in one glass and then fill the glass with water to the top. With the other glass, fill it to the top with water and put in an ice cube. Which glass causes more of a mess? Your answer on a postcard please.
@Thesaltyurchin: nothing is more important than money
@Billy Meehan: you can’t think of a single thing that is more important than money? Not even your own life? Christ on a bike, the mentality of these people
@Pól Pot: cool story lol. With a name like that I’m not sure you’ll be imogaining anything other than darkness… Ask ‘him’ how it happened… my guess humans too stoopy.
@Pól Pot: take your sickening Armageddon cult elsewhere.
@Pól Pot: What happens when you put more ice in, like adding a glacier to the sea with the icebergs
@Pól Pot: You spent your life bearing false witness, you’ll be going to the other place.
@Billy Meehan: Time is (imo). But little else thats for sure!
Not included in this article is the mention of food and water access for 2 billion people being directly affected by glacier loss. 25% of the planet. Most of whom living in areas who’ve done the least to cause this crisis
@Hayagriva: and if you believe that you will believe anything lol
@Billy Meehan: obvious troll is obvious. Muted
@Billy Meehan: To ‘believe’ something is to not fully understand it…. “until next time friends”
The sheer amount of facile comments from climate change deniers only serves to illustrate how this site has been infiltrated by trolls/bots/bad actors. It’s the same pattern for Trump articles, anything to do with immigration etc. Ironically, it convinces me of the validity of the published articles.
@Iano C: so you want a far left echo chamber?
@Billy Meehan: Science isn’t ‘far-left’, unfortunately ignorance and low education levels is a trait of the far-right.
@Jacintha Dumbrell: stupid comment .
@Billy Meehan: Nope, just informed science not bots/trolls/bad actors.
@Iano C: People forget they say more about themselves than any topic of ‘opinion’ and/or want to look like idiots, plenty of folks need some media training tho, how some are so emotively connected to ‘words’ is mad. Try not to be in one ‘cult’ or the other, they’re practically the same thing anyway.
As ice gets smaller the faster it shrinks. It’s normal.
@Jack: stumped on how to respond to such a unscientific and misleading statement
@Jack: water is pretty amazing given there’s a set amount of it on the planet that’s constantly cycling through different states. Maybe we should focus on managing it better, suppose we have the numbers…. oh the the numbers aren’t telling us what we want to hear lol.
This climate alarmism really needs to stop. Note how they said “glacier regions” and not simply just “glaciers” because it allows the writers to make sweeping generalisations. Glaciers in parts of Antarctica and the Karakoram range (Himalayas) have shown periods of growth or stability. The idea that every single glacier shrunk blatantly ignores regional variations. Glacial retreat did not start in the industrial era. The vast majority of glaciers began receding in the 1800s, long before Co2 levels rose significantly. This suggests natural climate cycles play a major role. We know that during the Medieval Warm Period that glaciers were smaller and during the Little Ice Age they expanded. So glacier changes are not exclusively tied to human activity. Sea level increases are not dangerous.
The poor polar bears
Zurich and Johannesburg. The only major financial centres not at sea level. Now…… if sea levels rise?
Canada is canceling the consumer carbon tax on April 1st the most corrupt tax ever levied on working people, this tax did absolutely nothing except disappear into a tax black hole.
At the end of the last ice age, the glaciers reached NYC and London. When the ice sheet receded, the oceans raised 100m. Ireland, the UK, Iceland, … became islands. There is a reason why all those caves with paintings found in France and Spain have been preserved as their entrance used to be above the sea level at that time.
As far as I know, 12,000 years ago, we didn’t have the technologies, cars, tankers, planes, … we have today. There is an impact of man, but it is ALSO a natural phenomenon…
Nature goes through cycles, and we might be accelerating it, but if our “primitive” ancestors survived it, it is dishonest to tell people that we’re on the brink of extinction…
Ask the island nations in the Pacific if climate change is real
Can we please also have an article on sinking lands, just for a bit of perspective and… balance?
have your say