The world’s glaciers have shrunk more than 5 per cent since 2000

An analysis of more than 270,000 glaciers worldwide reveals that they have lost around 7 trillion tonnes of ice since 2000, raising sea levels by 2 centimetres

By James Dinneen

19 February 2025

The Rhône glacier in the Swiss Alps in 2024

FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images

Glaciers worldwide have shrunk by more than 5 per cent on average since 2000, according to the most comprehensive assessment yet. This rapid rate of melting has accelerated by more than a third in the past decade as climate change continues apace.

“Any degree of warming matters for glaciers,” says Noel Gourmelen at the University of Edinburgh, UK. “They are a barometer for climate change.”

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The new numbers come from a global consortium of hundreds of researchers called the Glacier Mass Balance Intercomparison Exercise. The group aimed to reduce the uncertainty around how much the planet’s 200,000 or so glaciers have melted by using a standard procedure to assess different measures of their change in size. This includes gravity and elevation measurements from 20 satellites as well as ground-based measurements.

Between 2000 and 2011, glaciers were melting at a rate of about 231 billion tonnes of ice per year on average, the researchers found. This melt rate increased between 2012 and 2023 to 314 billion tonnes per year, an acceleration of more than a third. 2023 saw a record loss of mass of around 548 billion tonnes.

These numbers are in line with previous estimates. But this comprehensive look “provides a bit more confidence about the change that we see on glaciers”, says Gourmelen, who is part of the consortium. “And there’s a clear acceleration.”