Half of the Earth's glaciers are going to disappear by the end of the century due to climate change, but limiting global warming could save others.
The most comprehensive look at the future of the world's 215,000 glaciers has been published in the journal Science.
The authors stressed the importance of limiting greenhouse gas emissions to limit the effects of glacier melt.
To help orient policy makers, the study looked at the impact of four different scenarios on glaciers.
A co-author of the study said that every degree increase produced more melt and loss.
If you reduce the temperature increase you can also reduce the mass loss. There is a bit of hope in that.
If global temperature rise is limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, 49 percent of the world's glaciers will disappear by the year 2200.
About 26 percent of the world's glacier mass would be small glaciers.
A loss of glaciers in Central Europe, Western Canada and the continental United States and New Zealand is estimated to be caused by a global mean temperature increase.
They are more or less doomed.
Most of the glaciers in Alaska will disappear by the end of the century under the worst case scenario.
Sea level rise could be worsened by glacier loss.
The glaciers that we are studying are only a small part of the total ice on the planet.
She said that they have contributed to sea level rise just as much as the ice sheets of the other two countries.
Warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius would lead to an increase in average sea levels of nine centimeters, while Warming of 4 degrees Celsius would cause 15 centimeters of sea level rise.
It doesn't sound like much, but it's not global sea level that's more of a concern.
She said the storm surge could cause more damage.
Water resources will be affected by the disappearance of glaciers because they provide freshwater for two billion people.
When it's not raining and it's hot, the glaciers make up for the loss of water.
Observations of the mass of each glacier through the decades and computer simulations were used to reach the study's projections.
The mass loss can be reduced by human action.
It's a different question if it does happen. It's up to the policy makers if that occurs.
Agence France- Presse.
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