Satellite photos of glaciers around the world show that they’ve lost 31% more snow and ice during their annual thaws than they did 15 years previously, an effect of man-made climate change that will impact world ecosystems, the Associated Press reports.
Tracking the 220,000 mountain glaciers around the world using 3D imagery based on newly declassified satellite photos, scientists were able to determine that the glaciers are losing 328 billion tons of snow and ice each year. From 2015 to 2019, that was 78 billion tons more, on average, than the annual loss from 2000 to 2004.
The glaciers in the US and Canada showed the greatest impact of the trend, accounting for half of the world’s glacial losses. Alaska’s glacial melt was the greatest on the planet, with the Columbia Glacier losing a net 115 feet per year.
“Ten years ago, we were saying that the glaciers are the indicator of climate change, but now actually they’ve become a memorial of the climate crisis,” said World Glacier Monitoring Service Director Michael Zemp, who wasn’t part of the study.