How much glacier ice will be lost by 2100?

Under intermediate emissions (SSP2), roughly half of all small glaciers are gone by 2050; under high emissions (SSP5), two-thirds are gone by 2100. Fast-melting systems like the European Alps lose nearly all their mass.

Glacier retreat

The ice has a clock. Watch it run.

Six of the world's great ice systems, drawn at their 1980 extent. Scrub forward and they melt down to their projected mass — under low, intermediate, or high emissions.

1980

Baseline · 0% lost

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Year 1980

1980202020602100

Emission scenario

Mass lost vs 1980 baseline

How to use

Drag the year slider from 1980 to 2100, or hit Play to run the time-lapse. Switch the emission scenario chip to change the climate path: SSP1 (low) melts gently, SSP5 (high) strips the ice. Each blob on the canvas is a glacier system shrinking inside its 1980 outline.

How fast each system melts

IPCC AR6 WG1: global glacier ice loss runs ~280 Gt/year (2000–2019) and is accelerating. Andean and Himalayan glaciers lose mass fastest; the Antarctic interior is most stable, but the West Antarctic margin is not.

Each system here carries its own per-year loss rate, scaled by the chosen scenario. The mid-latitude systems — the European Alps above all — bleed out first. Half of all small glaciers are gone by 2050 under SSP2; two-thirds by 2100 under SSP5.

What we lose with the ice

Himalaya: 240M people depend on glacial-fed rivers — the Indus, Ganges, Yangtze. First decades bring more water as the melt surges. Then decline. Then dust.

Andes: Quito, La Paz, and Lima are already in deficit. Mountain water towers don't recharge once the ice that fed them is gone.

Citations

IPCC AR6 WG1 (2021) — Ch. 9, ocean & cryosphere, glacier mass-loss rates.
Hugonnet et al. (2021) — Global glacier mass-balance, Nature 592, 726.
Rounce et al. (2023) — "Global glacier change in the 21st century," Science 379, 78. Half of glaciers gone by 2100 at 1.5°C.
Zemp et al. (2019) — WGMS records, Nature 568, 382.
Immerzeel et al. (2020) — "Importance and vulnerability of the world's water towers," Nature 577, 364.

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