Geographer Dr Caroline Clason has played a key role in a major new international report highlighting the accelerating decline of the world's glaciers and ice sheets.
Co-ordinated by the UK National Commission for UNESCO, "Glaciers and Ice Sheets in a Warming World: Impacts and Outcomes" looks at the consequences of melting ice on people and the planet.
The report finds that since 2000, glaciers worldwide have lost more than 6,500 billion tonnes of ice.
Glaciers in the Tropical Andes
Caroline, in our Department of Geography and our Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience (IHRR), co-authored a chapter of the report.
Alongside Dr Sally Rangecroft of the University of Exeter, Caroline looked at the importance of glaciers in the Tropical Andes in South America, which are already being affected by climate change.
This has important consequences for the approximately 2.3 million people in the Tropical Andes who consume freshwater fed by glaciers.
Even in high mountain settings, glaciers are fast dwindling. In Peru, there has been a 56% reduction in glacier area between 1962 and 2020. Furthermore, in 2024 Venezuela was declared the first country to lose its glaciers in the modern era.
Glaciers in the Earth's tropics - the majority of which are in the Tropical Andes - are under considerable threat and experiencing rapid decline. The freshwater they produce are an important source of drinking water for millions of people and provide valuable support to ecosystems. It is crucial that we include traditional ecological knowledge and local perspectives to find pathways for successful and sustainable water management and adaptation to glacier decline.
Urgency of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C
Since 2000, ice loss from glaciers worldwide has contributed roughly one-third of current sea-level rise and cut the availability of water to countless mountain communities.
The rate of loss has accelerated by more than a third in the past decade, highlighting the urgency of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels.
