Glacier Mass Balance Losses 1980-2007 data from University of Zurich's World Glacier Monitoring Service

From the University of Zurich's World Glacier Monitoring Service

Glacier Mass Balance Losses 1980-2007

1 Summary of the balance years

Preliminary mass balance values for the observation periods 2005/06 and 2006/07 have been reported now from more than 100 and 80 glaciers worldwide, respectively. The mass balance statistics (Table 1) are calculated based on all reported values as well as on the data from the 30 reference glaciers in 9 mountain ranges (Table 2) with continuous observation series back to 1980.

The average mass balance of the glaciers with available long-term observation series around the world continues to decrease, with tentative figures indicating a further thickness reduction of 1.3 and 0.7 metres water equivalent (m w.e.) during the hydrological years 2006 and 2007, respectively. The new data continues the global trend in accelerated ice loss over the past few decades and brings the cumulative average thickness loss of the reference glaciers since 1980 at almost 11.3 m w.e. (see Figures 1 and 2). All so far reported tentative mass balance values for the two observation periods are given in Table 3.

Link to data tables and website: http://www.geo.unizh.ch/wgms/mbb/mbb10/sum07.html

Figure 1: Mean annual specific mass balance of reference glaciers. Click on image to enlarge the details.

Figure 2: Mean cumulative specific mass balance of all reported glaciers (dotted line) and the reference glaciers (blue line). Click on image to enlarge the details.