World's glaciers are losing an average of 267 gigatonnes of ice per year

An iceberg drifting off the coast of Greenland. – Photo: AFP

Since 2000, the world's glaciers have lost an average of 267 billion metric tons of ice every year, and the rate at which they are melting is still accelerating, warns a new international study, which examined several hundred thousand satellite photos taken over the last 20 years.

An international team of researchers has found that virtually all of the world's glaciers have shrunk since 2000. Worse still, the pace at which they are melting is on the rise. The total mass of glaciers on the planet has declined by an average of 267 billion tons (gigatonnes) every year since 2000, points out the study, which was published in Nature on April 28.