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ipcc report
Study Shows Glaciers Have Lost '3 Olympic Swimming Pools Per Second' Since 2000
One researcher said the findings support calls "for urgent and concrete actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and associated warming."
Feb 20, 2025
An international science project on Wednesday published a study in the journal Nature showing that glaciers have lost an average of 273 billion metric tons of ice annually since 2000—depleting freshwater resources, driving sea-level rise, and underscoring the need for sweeping global action to significantly reduce planet-heating pollution.
The Glacier Mass Balance Intercomparison Exercise (GlaMBIE) team compiled major studies to estimate global mass change from 2000, when glaciers—excluding Antarctica and Greenland's ice sheets—held about 121,728 billion metric tons of ice, to 2023.
The researchers found that during that period, the world lost 5% of all glacier ice, with regional losses for the full two decades ranging from 2% on the Antarctic and Subantarctic islands, to 39% in Central Europe.
That's a loss of 6,542 billion metric tons total or 273 billion metric tons per year, "the equivalent of three Olympic swimming pools per second," noted France's National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS).
Glaciologist Michael Zemp, who co-led the study, said in a statement that the annual figure "amounts to what the entire global population consumes in 30 years, assuming three liters per person and day."
"Every tenth of a degree warming that we avoid saves us money, saves us lives, saves us problems."
Although the researchers highlighted the annual average, they also emphasized that the rate of glacier ice loss "increased significantly" from 231 billion metric tons annually during the first half of the study period to 314 billion metric tons per year in the second half. In other words, the amount of ice being lost surged by 36% between the two ranges.
Zemp, a professor at Switzerland's University of Zurich and director of the World Glacier Monitoring Service, toldAgence France-Presse that the findings are "shocking" and warned that many smaller glaciers "will not survive the present century."
Stephen Plummer, an Earth observation applications scientist at the European Space Agency, said that "these findings are not only crucial for advancing our scientific understanding of global glacier changes, but also provide a valuable baseline to help regions address the challenges of managing scarce freshwater resources and contribute to developing effective mitigation strategies to combat rising sea level."
The ice loss over the GlaMBIE study's full timeline led to about 18 mm or 0.7 inches of sea-level rise. The researchers projected future losses that lead to 32-67 mm, or 1.26-2.6 inches, of sea-level rise by 2040.
"We are facing higher sea-level rise until the end of this century than expected before," Zemp told AFP, referring to the latest projection from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
"You have to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions, it is as simple and as complicated as that," Zemp said. "Every tenth of a degree warming that we avoid saves us money, saves us lives, saves us problems."
The GlaMBIE project manager, Samuel Nussbaumer, similarly toldOceanographic, that "our observations and recent modeling studies indicate that glacier mass loss will continue and possibly accelerate until the end of this century," which underpins the IPCC's "call for urgent and concrete actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and associated warming to limit the impact of glacier wastage on local geohazards, regional freshwater availability, and global sea-level rise."
The team's findings were released during the U.N.'s International Year of Glaciers' Preservation and the Decade of Action for Cryospheric Sciences—and they "will feed into the next IPCC report, due in 2029," according to CNRS.
Scientists from around the world who were not involved with the study were alarmed by its revelations—which come after the hottest year in human history and amid humanity's failure to curb planet-heating emissions, largely from fossil fuels.
Martin Siegert, a professor at the United Kingdom's University of Exeter, said in a statement that "this research is concerning to us, because it predicts further glacier loss, which can be considered like a 'canary in the coal mine' for ice sheet reaction to global warming and far more sea-level rise this century and beyond. The IPCC indicates 0.5-1 meters this century—but that is with a 66% certainty—hence 1/3 chance it could be higher under 'strong' warming, which unfortunately is the pathway we are on presently."
Andrew Shepherd, a professor at Northumbria University, another U.K. institution, explained that "glacier melting has two main impacts; it causes sea-level rise and it disrupts the water supply in rivers that are fed by meltwater."
"Around 2 billion people depend on meltwater from glaciers and so their retreat is a big problem for society—it's not just that we are losing them from our landscape, they are an important part of our daily lives," he said. "Even small amounts of sea-level rise matter because it leads to more frequent coastal flooding. Every centimeter of sea-level rise exposes another 2 million people to annual flooding somewhere on our planet."
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Demanding Swift Action, UN Chief Calls IPCC Report a 'Survival Guide for Humanity'
"We must move into warp-speed climate action now. We don't have a moment to lose," said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.
Mar 20, 2023
The head of the United Nations outlined a plan Monday to "super-charge" climate action after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its most stark warning yet about the trajectory of planetary heating and its cascading impacts on ecosystems and the life they sustain.
"This report is a clarion call to massively fast-track climate efforts by every country and every sector and on every timeframe," said U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, who argued the IPCC's findings show that "humanity is on thin ice—and that ice is melting fast."
"Today's IPCC report is a how-to guide to defuse the climate time bomb," Guterres added. "It is a survival guide for humanity. As it shows, the 1.5-degree limit is achievable. But it will take a quantum leap in climate action."
To achieve such a leap, the U.N. chief said it is imperative for governments to urgently work toward a number of benchmarks, including:
- No new coal and the phasing out of coal by 2030 in OECD countries and 2040 in all other countries;
- Ending all international public and private funding of coal;
- Ensuring net zero electricity generation by 2035 for all developed countries and 2040 for the rest of the world;
- Ceasing all licensing or funding of new oil and gas—consistent with the findings of the International Energy Agency;
- Stopping any expansion of existing oil and gas reserves;
- Shifting subsidies from fossil fuels to a just energy transition; and
- Establishing a global phase-down of existing oil and gas production compatible with the 2050 global net zero target.
"By the end of COP28, I count on all G20 leaders to have committed to ambitious new economy-wide nationally determined contributions encompassing all greenhouse gases and indicating their absolute emissions cuts targets for 2035 and 2040," said Guterres, who is set to host a September summit aimed at building global support for bold climate action.
"Partial pledges won't cut it," Guterres said Monday. "We have never been better equipped to solve the climate challenge—but we must move into warp-speed climate action now. We don't have a moment to lose."
"This report is a clarion call to massively fast-track climate efforts by every country and every sector and on every timeframe."
Compiled by hundreds of top scientists from around the world, the IPCC's new report—like previous iterations—emphasizes that greenhouse gas emissions stemming from human activity "have unequivocally caused global warming" and that "continued greenhouse gas emissions will lead to increasing global warming."
"There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all," the report states. "The choices and actions implemented in this decade will have impacts now and for thousands of years."
Warming beyond the Paris accord's most ambitious target of 1.5°C by century's end, the report warned, would expose ecosystems and societies to "greater and more widespread" consequences, including "increased wildfires, mass mortality of trees, drying of peatlands, and permafrost thawing, weakening natural land carbon sinks and increasing releases of GHGs."
The report cautioned that without dramatic emission cuts, the world could hit the 1.5°C warming threshold by "the first half of the 2030s." Earth has already warmed 1.1°C since the mid-19th century.
IPCC scientists estimated that global greenhouse gas emissions must be cut by 60% by 2035—compared to 2019 levels—to keep alive hopes of averting climate catastrophe.
Romain Ioualalen, global policy campaign manager at Oil Change International, said Monday that the new assessment "once more raises the alarms to code red."
"The United Nations secretary-general's response to the IPCC report makes it abundantly clear that the time when countries can pretend to be climate leaders while expanding oil and gas production is over," said Ioualalen. "This is why the Biden administration's reckless decision to approve the Willow oil project in Alaska deserves international condemnation."
"We commend Secretary-General Guterres for laying out clear expectations for all countries to ban new oil and gas projects immediately while charting a just and equitable transition away from fossil fuels and towards clean energy for all," Ioualalen continued. "This question must be at the heart of the secretary general's September summit and COP28."
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'We Have a Choice Here to Act': IPCC Climate Report to Sound Most Dire Warning Yet
"The central message from climate scientists is unmistakable: governments must rally to drastically cut emissions and cease the extraction and burning of fossil fuels this decade."
Mar 20, 2023
A United Nations panel composed of the world's top scientists is set to release its latest climate assessment on Monday as governments fail to heed repeated, increasingly urgent warnings that the window for action to prevent catastrophic global heating is nearly shut.
The landmark report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will come after a year in which planet-warming CO2 emissions shattered records once again as the impacts of such pollution—from "apocalyptic" flooding in Pakistan to deadly drought in East Africa—continued to mount.
After repeated delays, government delegations signed off on the IPCC's Sixth Assessment Report on Sunday, clearing the way for the formal release of a sprawling synthesis of years of climate research.
The Associated Pressreported that the final decision came after "officials from big nations such as China, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, the United States, and the European Union haggled through the weekend over the wording of key phrases in the text."
Lesley Hughes, a former IPCC author and a director of the Australia-based Climate Council, said ahead of the report's release that "while this is a summary report of work we'd already seen in development, there is no doubt the findings of this report will be dire."
"Since the previous IPCC report was released, we've had even more unnatural disasters," Hughes added. "We must focus on the fact that predictions are now becoming observations. We've also had a period since the previous IPCC report came out where global emissions are rising once again, so the gap between where we are and where we need to go is increasing rather than decreasing."
"If we haven't seriously turned things around by the time the next such assessment report is due, then we'll be in very deep trouble."
The IPCC's 2021 report was deemed a "code red for humanity," a glaring signal that accelerated global action to phase out fossil fuel extraction and use was needed to avert disaster.
But in the years since, governments—specifically the rich nations most responsible for the climate crisis—have refused to act with the speed and ambition that scientists say is necessary.
At the end of 2022, the U.N. climate conference—an event teeming with fossil fuel lobbyists—ended with no concrete action to rein in oil and gas production.
As a result, hugely profitable global fossil fuel giants are planning to expand their operations in the coming years, potentially locking in additional emissions and further imperiling efforts to meet critical warming targets.
Governments, including those that claim to view the climate crisis as an existential threat, are actively aiding the continued extraction of fossil fuels. Just last week, the Biden administration approved the largest proposed oil drilling project on U.S. public land despite widespread opposition.
"This is the kind of thing that we simply can't afford to do anymore," Kristina Dahl of the Union of Concerned Scientists wrote late last week. "The fossil fuel industry has, for decades, opposed and obstructed any meaningful action on climate change. And despite ardent claims otherwise, the industry has refused to commit to align its business model with what the IPCC says is required to minimize climate harms. The industry remains a barrier to the future the world's children deserve."
Simon Bradshaw, the Climate Council's director of research, said Monday that the IPCC's new report will represent "a final warning."
"The central message from climate scientists is unmistakable: governments must rally to drastically cut emissions and cease the extraction and burning of fossil fuels this decade," said Bradshaw. "That message has been delivered repeatedly, and consistently, for many decades."
"We are seeing progress when it comes to renewable energy uptake, and cleaner transport, but things just aren't moving fast enough. If we haven't seriously turned things around by the time the next such assessment report is due, then we'll be in very deep trouble," Bradshaw added. "We have a choice here to act swiftly this decade. If we start giving it our all right now, we can avert the worst of it. So many solutions are readily available, like solar and wind power, storage, electric appliances, and clean transport options. We need to get our skates on."
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