Glaciers ending in lakes, oceans or ice shelves lose 134 billion tonnes of ice per year
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A study found that just three per cent of glaciers globally account for more than half of glacier ice loss worldwide.
Published in Nature Communications, researchers from the University of Birmingham and the University of Leeds found that glaciers ending in lakes lost ice around 57 per cent faster, relative to their size, than those ending on land across the same period. They also discovered how glaciers ending in lakes, oceans or ice shelves lost 134 billion tonnes of ice each year between 2000 and 2019.
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After examining more than 216,000 glaciers worldwide – excluding the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets – the team compared ice flow and ice loss across all four glacier types.
‘Glaciers ending in lakes really stand out: they’re losing ice particularly quickly. We don’t yet know exactly why. It could be the lakes themselves, the size and shape of the glaciers, or a bit of both. Untangling that is the next big question, especially as glacier lakes are becoming more common in a warming climate,’ said Dr Joe Mallalieu, who conducted the research at the University of Birmingham.
Lakes affect glaciers in several ways, including losing large chunks of ice as they calve. In addition, lake water can melt ice below the waterline, speeding up ice loss.
Around the world, glacial ice covers 10 per cent of land area. This includes glaciers, ice caps and the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland.
The world’s largest glacier is the Seller Glacier on the Antarctic Peninsula, stretching more than 7,000 square kilometres (2,700 square miles). Outside of Antarctica, the largest glaciers are Malaspina-Seward Glacier in Alaska (3,363 square kilometres), followed by Wykeham Glacier South in the Canadian Arctic (3,176 square kilometres) and the Bering Glacier in Alaska (3,025 square kilometres).
Glaciers and ice caps store around 68.7 per cent of the world’s freshwater.
