World Glacier melting update: There's less ice in them than estimated earlier, says study

Global water scarcity might worsen, if a new study is accurate.

The glaciers of the world seem to be containing significantly less ice than thought previously, according to thestudy.

The revelation was made with the help of advancedsatellite technology.

The study was published in Nature Geoscience on Monday.

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If all glaciers melt, the global sea level will rise by 3 inches (7.62 centimetres), as per the revised estimate.

Romain Millan, glaciologist, Université Grenoble Alpes, said, “We’ve had quite a poor understanding of how much ice is actually stored in glaciers.” Millan is also the lead author of the study.

For example, the past analyses had double-counted glaciers along the peripheries of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, which led to overestimating ice volume.

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It assessed how quickly the glaciers are moving across the landscape, or their velocity. It helps scientists to measure volume more accurately as the flow of the glaciersindicates that ice is thick or thin.

In recent years, high-resolution satellites helped to conduct the analysis of how 98% of the world’s glaciers are moving, “from small glaciers in the Andes up to massive glaciers in Svalbard and Patagonia,” said Millan.

“Our study does not include the Greenland and the Antarctica, which in the long-term will be the major drivers of sea-level rise,” Millan told Al Jazeera from Grenoble.

(With inputs from agencies)