Glaciers have been melting from global warming since the mid 19th century, but in the 1950’s-1980’s the glaciers’ global retreat began to become very noticeable. The global retreat is a widespread shrinking of glaciers worldwide, where melting and ice loss significantly exceed snowfall and accumulation, primarily driven by human-caused global warming.
In the 1990s, melting became more rapid and widespread globally. In the 2000’s to 2023 glaciers have lost on average 270 billion tons of ice annually, which is about a rate 3 times higher than the 1980s. The period from 2015 to 2024 accounted for 41% of total glacier loss since 1976, with 2022, 2023, and 20224 breaking records. 2024 alone saw massive ice loss, with estimates suggesting 450 gigatons, significantly contributing to sea-level rise (about 1.5 mm from this year’s melt alone).
From the article “Why are glaciers and sea ice melting?” from worldwildlife.org, glaciers are melting primarily due to human-caused climate change, driven by increased greenhouse gas emissions that warm the atmosphere and oceans, leading to faster surface melting, more meltwater carving deeper into the ice, and warm ocean currents eroding glaciers from below. Other factors include darker surfaces absorbing more sunlight (less reflectivity, or albedo), reduced snowfall, and even volcanic ash, all accelerating ice loss beyond natural cycles.
So how can we help prevent the glaciers from melting? Glaciologists believe that, despite the massive ice loss, we still have time to save the glaciers from their predicted disappearance. Some solutions we can implement to stop climate change are to slow down their erosion of glaciers, combine artificial icebergs and increase their thickness.
In order to curtail climate change and save glaciers, it is indispensable that global CO2 emissions be reduced by 45% over the next decade, and that they fall to zero after 2050.
The scientific journal Nature suggested building a 100-meter-long dam in front of the Jakobshavn glacier (in Greenland), the worst affected by Arctic melting, to contain its erosion.
Combining artificial icebergs; Indonesian architect Faris Rajak Kotahatuhaha won an award for his project Refreeze the Arctic, which consists of collecting water from melted glaciers, desalinating it and refreezing it to create large hexagonal ice blocks. Thanks to their shape, these icebergs could then be combined to create frozen masses.
The University of Arizona proposed a similar and seemingly simple solution: manufacture more ice. Their proposal consists of collecting ice from below the glacier through pumps driven by wind power to spread it over the upper ice caps, so that it will freeze, thus strengthening the consistency.
From the article “How would sea level change if all glaciers melted?” from USGS talks about how there is still some uncertainty about the full volume of glaciers and ice caps on Earth, but if all of them were to melt, global sea level would rise approximately 70 meters (approximately 230 feet), flooding every coastal city on the planet. The melting glaciers are a big deal, we need to act and fix this problem we have created before it gets worse now.
