Glaciers Are Shrinking at an Incredible Rate

An international team of researchers has made an ominous discovery: our planet's glaciers are melting at even more alarming rates than previously predicted, in large part due to human-driven climate change. As detailed in a paper published in the journal Nature, the team estimated that ice loss accelerated from about 255 billion tons a year between 2000 and 2011 to 346 billion tons annually between 2012 and 2023. And the recent years from 2019 to 2023 represented the largest annual ice loss, averaging more than 440 billion tons a year — and setting a new record in 2023 by losing 604 billion tons of ice. "To put this in perspective, the 273 billion tonnes of ice lost in one single year amounts to what the entire global population consumes in 30 years, assuming three liters per person and day," said University of Zurich professor and coauthor Michael Zemp in a statement. In short, this is the terrifying new reality of the climate. "The thing that people should be aware of and perhaps ... Read full article.