United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has released a report that warns glaciers around the world are shrinking significantly, with strong retreats in the 1940s, a short break of stability or growth in the 1970s, but increasing rates of ice loss since then.
Over the last decade of available data, from 1996 to 2005, the average thickness loss was over 0.5m ‘water equivalent’ annually. The report confirms that the average annual melt rate of glaciers appears to have doubled since the turn of the millennium. Record losses were also reported in 2006 for a key network of reference sites.
On a timescale of decades, glaciers have shown intermittent re-advances, the scientists noted. Looking at individual fluctuation rates, they found a high rate of variability and sometimes widely contrasting behaviour in neighbouring ice bodies.
