CLIMATE CHANGE:Mountain glaciers around the world continue to melt, with new figures for 2005 indicating a further reduction in their average thickness of 0.6 metres, according to scientists.
The data, published yesterday by the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS), confirm the trend in accelerated ice loss during the past 25 years and bring the average thickness loss since 1980 to about 9.6 metres.
These results are based on measurements of glacier mass collected by scientists from 80 glaciers all over the world, including 30 "reference glaciers" in nine mountain ranges that have been monitored continuously since 1980.
Though the latest results are preliminary, the Zurich-based WGMS noted that the average annual ice loss since 2000 was about 0.6 metres - 1.6 times more than the average for the 1990s and three times the rate for the 1980s.
Comprehensive figures for 2006 are not yet available, but scientists anticipate that they will show a continuing downward trend since it was one of the warmest years on record in many parts of the world, including Europe.
Achim Steiner, UN under-secretary general and executive director of the UN Environment Programme, said the glacier ice loss data for 2005 "underlines the rapid changes occurring on the planet as a result of climate change".
Describing it as "the most authoritative, comprehensive and up-to-date information on glaciers worldwide", he said it would be confirmed by the release on Friday of the latest assessment of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Mr Steiner noted that glaciers were important sources of water for many large rivers - "rivers upon which people depend for drinking water, agriculture and industrial purposes". At the current rate of melting, these could eventually dry up.
"These findings should strengthen the resolve of governments to act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and put in place the medium- to longer-term strategies necessary to avert dangerous climate change," he added.
"Today, the glacier surface is much smaller than in the 1980s," said Michael Zemp, a WGMS scientist.
"The recent increase in rates of ice loss over reducing glacier surface areas leaves no doubt about the accelerated change in climatic conditions."
The WGMS collects standardised data based on scientific measurements of the "net mass balance" of glaciers, which can be seen as their overall thickness changes.
They are one of the most essential variables in monitoring global warming.
Last month, a report compiled by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) warned that climate change posed serious risks to the "snow reliability" of Alpine ski areas, and consequently to their economies. The Alps had the warmest November on record, delaying the arrival of snow by several weeks. Germany was the country most at risk, facing a possible 60 per cent reduction in snow with an increase in temperature of just one degree.
According to the OECD report, the years 1994, 2000, 2002 and 2003 were the warmest on record in the Alps in the last 500 years.
Climate model projections show that glaciers will continue to recede, with permafrost melting higher up.
