Glaciers on the Climate Dashboard

The World Glacier Monitoring Service has tracked reference glaciers across 19 mountain zones and found that their mass balance has been consistently negative since the late 1980s, meaning they have been shrinking overall. This glacier loss is significant because glaciers serve as critical freshwater reserves that sustain human populations during dry seasons, and their melting contributes to rising sea levels that threaten coastal communities. Glacier retreat is driven by multiple climate factors including temperature, snowfall, sea water temperature, and precipitation patterns.