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The Global Retreat of Glaciers

Index of Images

The Qori Kalis Glacier is the largest ice outlet from the Quelccaya Ice Cap which tops the Cordillera Vilcanota in southeast corner of Peru. They are the Sacred Mountains of Inca civilisation. The ice cap itself has shrunk by at least 20 percent since 1963. © L Thomson/ Byrd Polar Reseach Center 1
The Qori Kalis is disappearing at an alarming rate: between 1998 and 2001 it retreated an average of 155 metres per year - an alarming 32 times faster than the average annual retreat from 1963 to 1978. © L Thomson/ Byrd Polar Research Center 2
Grinnell Glacier in the USA's Glacier National Park flows into the semi-arid high plains through the St Marys and South Saskatchewan Rivers through Canada Hudson's Bay. © Marble, Glacier National Park archives. 3
By 1997 Grinnell's remnants were less than half its total in 1850. © Fagre, Glacier National Park archives. 4
The Maori call New Zealand's Franz Josef glacier Ka Roimato or "Frozen Tears" after a tale of doomed lovers. This very dynamic glacier it has retreated 1500 metres since scientific observations began in 1860. 5
The Franz Josef glacier is again in a period of retreat, despite an increase between 1983 and 1999. 6
The Pasterze Glacier in the Austrian Alps, provides water that flows into the Danube basin, home to 83 million people. United Nations scientists have found that the European Alps lost half of the original ice volume since 1850. 7
The Pasterze glacier, is currently losing 5 metres in height and 20 metres in length every year. Scientists from the World Glacier Monitoring Service predict that 95 percent of Alpine glaciers could vanish over the next 100 years due to global warming. 8
The Orubare Glacier (or Elena Glacier) covers a face of Uganda's Mount Rwenzori on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 1906 this glacier was in one solid piece. Equatorial glaciers are rare and this legendary African glacier on "The Mountains of the Moon" is rapidly retreating. 9
By 1994 the Orubare had broken into four smaller glaciers. The glacier catchment basin is vitally important to densely populated Uganda, supplying 500,000 people with water and flowing into the Nile. 10
The Imja Glacier in the Himalayan Khumbu Range of Eastern Nepal, southeast of Mount Everest. This glacier is retreating at nearly 10 metres per year. 11
Glaciers in the Himalayas are receding faster than in any other part of the world and if the present rate of retreat continues, they may be gone by 2035. More than 2 billion people - a third of the world's population, rely on the Himalayas for their water. 12
View of the "Blomstrandbreen" Glacier in Svalbard in 1922 13
The dramatic retreat of this glacier is evident from this photo from 2002 14

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