Glaciers in Central Europe have shrunk by almost 40%, with about 273 billion tons of ice falling into the ocean in a year: scientists reveal alarming data

Inna Vasilyuk News20.02.2025 17:09

A major new study warns that melting glaciers are leading to rapid sea level rise. An international team of scientists claims that the Earth's ice blocks are melting so fast that 273 billion tons of ice are now being released into the ocean every year.

While global glaciers have lost an average of 5% of their mass, glaciers in Central Europe have already shrunk by almost 40%. Since 2000, this has led to a 1.8 cm rise in global sea level, making glaciers the second largest contributor to ocean rise, DailyMail reports.

According to the researchers, over the past quarter of a decade, glaciers have lost 18% more ice than the Greenland ice sheet and more than twice as much as in Antarctica. These are disturbing facts because in this way the Earth is losing fresh water reserves extremely quickly.

Glaciers in Central Europe have shrunk by almost 40%, with about 273 billion tons of ice falling into the ocean in a year: scientists reveal alarming data

An international team of researchers has found a sharp increase in glacial melting over the past decade, with about 36% more ice lost between 2012 and 2023 than between 2000 and 2011, ScienceAlert notes.

Scientists say that this process will become even faster and out of control as the climate continues to change towards warming.

"Our observations and recent modeling studies indicate that glacier mass loss will continue and possibly accelerate by the end of this century," said Dr. Samuel Nussbaumer, a glaciologist at the University of Zurich and project leader of the study.

Led by the World Glacier Watch (WGS), 35 teams of scientists from around the world combined 233 estimates of glacier mass change.

These estimates included satellite observations and measurements made by dedicated researchers on the ground. Together, they provide an extremely comprehensive picture of how fast the world's glaciers are melting.

According to these data, in 2010, glaciers covered an area of 705,221 square kilometers and contained 121,728 billion tons of ice. However, by 2023, the glaciers had released a total of 6,542 tons of ice into the ocean.

This equates to an annual loss of 237 billion tons of ice, which raises global sea levels by an average of 0.75 mm annually.

A recent study conducted by Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, predicted that global sea levels could rise by 1.9 meters by 2100 if carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions continue to increase.

If the global sea level rises by 1.9 meters, many cities around the world may go underwater, experts say.