1 Summary of the balance years 2021/22 and 2022/23

Mass balance values for the observation periods will be reported from more than 130 glaciers worldwide. The mass balance statistics (Table 1) are calculated based on all reported values and on available data from about 60 reference glaciers with continued observation series of more than 30 years. The average mass balance of the glaciers with available long-term observation series around the world continues to be very negative. The latest data continues the global trend in strong ice loss over the past few decades and brings the cumulative average thickness loss of the reference glaciers since 1980 to more than 25 m w.e. The current status of glaciers worldwide is summarized here. All so far reported mass balance values, given in Table 2, are tentative.

Table 1: Overview on mass balance data 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23. Statistics are given for all reported glaciers (ALL) and for the available ‘reference’ glaciers with continuous long-term observation series (REF).

Under the following links you find more information about the reference glaciers, the mass-balance datasets, and detailed assessments of global glacier mass changes.

2 Mass balance data

Table 2: Reported mass balance values of the observation period 2021/22 as well as values for 2022/23. Principal investigators are listed for submitted data of 2022/23.