The Glacier Mass Balance Intercomparison Exercise, or GlaMBIE—a European Space Agency project launched in 2022—aims to strengthen global glacier monitoring by combining field observations with satellite-based data from remote sensing technologies.
The Glacier Mass Balance Intercomparison Exercise, or GlaMBIE—a European Space Agency project launched in 2022—aims to strengthen global glacier monitoring by combining field observations with satellite-based data from remote sensing technologies. By bringing together researchers and institutions from the scientific community, the project seeks to identify gaps in the global monitoring record and future challenges to the field. The findings of the first stage of GlaMBIE, published in Nature this year, show that since 2000, glaciers have lost about five percent of their mass globally, with some regions having lost up to 39 percent.
GlaMBIE has entered the research scene during a critical time: continued funding for crucial glacier monitoring technologies is uncertain, and the magnitude of global glacier decline in the 21st century has been historically unprecedented—reinforcing the idea of glaciers as clear indicators of ongoing anthropogenic climate change. Glacier monitoring is essential for tracking glacier mass changes over time, and GlaMBIE’s assessment is important in ensuring the continuity of this data, especially when many glacier monitoring technologies are expected to be suspended or decommissioned due to U.S funding cuts.
Read more at: Columbia Climate School
Susitna Glacier, Alaska. Acquired in 2009 by the ASTER instrument on NASA’s Terra Satellite. (Jesse Allen & Robert Simmon/NASA Earth Observatory)
