Glaciers that end in lakes, oceans or ice shelves are losing the most ice: they make up only about 3.2% of the world’s glaciers but accounted for more than half of all glacier ice loss between 2000 and 2019.
A study published in Nature Communications in October 2026, led by researchers at the University of Birmingham and the University of Leeds, examined 216,502 glaciers worldwide, excluding the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. These water-ending glaciers lost about 134 billion metric tons of ice a year, partly because they tend to be large and together cover more than half of the world’s glacier area. Glaciers ending in lakes stood out most, losing ice about 57% faster relative to their size than glaciers ending on land. Lake- and ocean-ending glaciers also flowed about 10% and 44% faster than land-ending ones. Calving icebergs and lake water melting ice below the waterline likely speed the losses. Because glacier lakes are growing as the climate warms, the authors say projections of sea-level rise and water supplies need to account for them.
Image: Columbia Glacier calving terminus, Alaska, 1991, Austin Post (USGS), public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.