This figure shows the average rate of thickness change in mountain glaciers around the world. This information, known as the glaciological mass balance, is found by measuring the annual snow accumulation and subtracting surface ablation driven by melting, sublimation, or wind erosion. These measurements do not account for thinning associated with iceberg calving, flow related thinning, or subglacial erosion. All values are corrected for variations in snow and firn density and expressed in meters of water equivalent (Dyurgerov 2002).

Measurements are shown as both the annual average thickness change and the accumulated change during the fifty years of measurements presented. Years with a net increase in glacier thickness are plotted upwards and in red; years with a net decrease in glacier thickness (i.e. positive thinning) are plotted downward and in blue. Only three years in the last 50 have experienced thickening in the average.

Systematic measurements of glacier thinning began in the 1940s, but fewer than 15 sites had been measured each year until the late 1950s. Since then more than 100 sites have contributed to the average in some years (Dyurgerov 2002, Dyurgerov and Meier 2005). Error bars indicate the standard error in the mean.

Other observations, based on glacier length records, suggest that glacier retreat has occurred nearly continuously since the early 1800s and the end of the little ice age, but variations in rate have occurred, including a significant acceleration during the twentieth century that is believed to have been a response to global warming (Oerlemans 2005).

These measurements are described in Dyurgerov (2002), updated in Dyurgerov and Meier (2005), and archived at the World Glacier Monitoring Service at the National Snow and Ice Data Center. [1] archive copy at the Wayback Machine [2]

This figure was prepared by Robert A. Rohde from published data and is part of the Global Warming Art project.

Image from Global Warming Art

This image is an original work created for Global Warming Art. Please refer to the image description page for more information.

已授权您依据自由软件基金会发行的无固定段落及封面封底文字（Invariant Sections, Front-Cover Texts, and Back-Cover Texts）的GNU自由文件许可协议1.2版或任意后续版本的条款，复制、传播和／或修改本文件。该协议的副本请见“GNU Free Documentation License”。http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.htmlGFDLGNU Free Documentation Licensetruetrue

	本文件采用知识共享署名-相同方式共享 3.0 未本地化版本许可协议授权。
	您可以自由地： 共享 – 复制、发行并传播本作品 修改 – 改编作品 惟须遵守下列条件： 署名 – 您必须对作品进行署名，提供授权条款的链接，并说明是否对原始内容进行了更改。您可以用任何合理的方式来署名，但不得以任何方式表明许可人认可您或您的使用。 相同方式共享 – 如果您再混合、转换或者基于本作品进行创作，您必须以与原先许可协议相同或相兼容的许可协议分发您贡献的作品。
	本许可协议标签作为GFDL许可协议更新的组成部分被添加至本文件。http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/CC BY-SA 3.0Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0truetrue

• Dyurgerov, Mark B. (2002). "Glacier Mass Balance and Regime: Data of Measurements and Analysis". Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, Occasional Paper 55.
• Dyurgerov, Mark B. and Mark F. Meier (2005). "Glaciers and the Changing Earth System: A 2004 Snapshot". Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, Occasional Paper 58.
• J. Oerlemans (2005). "Extracting a Climate Signal from 169 Glacier Records". Science 308 (5722): 675-677. DOI:10.1126/science.1107046.

File:Glacier Mass Balance vector.svg是此文件的矢量版本。 如果此文件质量不低于原点阵图，就应该将这个PNG格式文件替换为此文件。 File:Glacier Mass Balance.png → File:Glacier Mass Balance vector.svg 更多信息请参阅Help:SVG/zh。 其他语言 Alemannisch ∙ Bahasa Indonesia ∙ Bahasa Melayu ∙ British English ∙ català ∙ čeština ∙ dansk ∙ Deutsch ∙ eesti ∙ English ∙ español ∙ Esperanto ∙ euskara ∙ français ∙ Frysk ∙ galego ∙ hrvatski ∙ Ido ∙ italiano ∙ lietuvių ∙ magyar ∙ Nederlands ∙ norsk bokmål ∙ norsk nynorsk ∙ occitan ∙ Plattdüütsch ∙ polski ∙ português ∙ português do Brasil ∙ română ∙ Scots ∙ sicilianu ∙ slovenčina ∙ slovenščina ∙ suomi ∙ svenska ∙ Tiếng Việt ∙ Türkçe ∙ vèneto ∙ Ελληνικά ∙ беларуская (тарашкевіца) ∙ български ∙ македонски ∙ нохчийн ∙ русский ∙ српски / srpski ∙ татарча/tatarça ∙ українська ∙ ქართული ∙ հայերեն ∙ বাংলা ∙ தமிழ் ∙ മലയാളം ∙ ไทย ∙ 한국어 ∙ 日本語 ∙ 简体中文 ∙ 繁體中文 ∙ עברית ∙ العربية ∙ فارسی ∙ +/−

 

• 
  Portuguese
• 
  Spanish