Small fraction of lake, ocean and ice-shelf glaciers drives most ice loss

Glaciers that end in lakes, oceans, or ice shelves represent just 3.2% of the world’s glaciers, but they lost an estimated 134 billion tonnes of ice per year between 2000 and 2019—more than half of global glacier ice loss, according to a study in Nature Communications. Researchers from the University of Birmingham and the University of Leeds analyzed 216,502 glaciers (excluding Greenland and Antarctica) and grouped them by where they terminate. Lake-ending glaciers lost about 57% more ice than land-ending glaciers relative to size and flowed about 10% faster, with ocean-ending glaciers flowing 44% faster.