UN General Assembly declares 2025 as International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation

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Taking note of the outcomes of the second High-level International Conference on the International Decade for Action “Water for Sustainable Development”, 2018–2028, held in Dushanbe from 6 to 9 June 2022, which support the initiative of Tajikistan on declaring an international year of glaciers’ preservation in 2025, and noting with appreciation the intention to strengthen an international mechanism to facilitate access to accurate and timely information on the cryosphere, UN Decides to declare 2025 the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation and to proclaim 21 March of each year the World Day for Glaciers, to be observed starting in 2025;

Profile of Glaciers:

A glacier is a large, perennial accumulation of crystalline ice, snow, rock, sediment, and often liquid water that originates on land and moves down slope under the influence of its own weight and gravity. Typically, glaciers exist and may even form in areas where:

  1. mean annual temperatures are close to the freezing point
  2. winter precipitation produces significant accumulations of snow
  3. temperatures throughout the rest of the year do not result in the complete loss of the previous winter’s snow accumulation

Over multiple decades this continuing accumulation of snow results in the presence of a large enough mass of snow for the metamorphism from snow to glacier ice process to begin. Glaciers are classified by their size (i.e. ice sheet, ice cap, valley glacier, cirque glacier), location, and thermal regime (i.e., polar vs. temperate). Glaciers are sensitive indicators of changing climate.

Glacier ice is blue because the red (long wavelengths) part of white light is absorbed by ice and the blue (short wavelengths) light is transmitted and scattered. The longer the path light travels in ice, the more blue it appears.

About 2.1% of all of Earth's water is frozen in glaciers.

  • 97.2% is in the oceans and inland seas
  • 2.1% is in glaciers
  • 0.6% is in groundwater and soil moisture
  • less than 1% is in the atmosphere
  • less than 1% is in lakes and rivers
  • less than 1% is in all living plants and animals.

About three-quarters of Earth's freshwater is stored in glaciers. Therefore, glacier ice is the second largest reservoir of water on Earth and the largest reservoir of freshwater on Earth!

Glaciers exist on every continent except Australia. Approximate distribution is:

  • 91% in Antarctica
  • 8% in Greenland
  • Less than 0.5% in North America (about 0.1% in Alaska)
  • 0.2% in Asia
  • Less than 0.1% are in South America, Europe, Africa, New Zealand, and Indonesia.

Glaciers act as reservoirs of water that persist through summer. Continual melt from glaciers contributes water to the ecosystem throughout dry months, creating perennial stream habitat and a water source for plants and animals. The cold runoff from glaciers also affects downstream water temperatures. Many aquatic species in mountainous environments require cold water temperatures to survive. Some aquatic insects--fundamental components of the food web--are especially sensitive to stream temperature and cannot survive without the cooling effects of glacial meltwater. Such changes in stream habitat may also adversely impact native trout and other keystone salmon species.

Himalayan Glaciers:
Himalayan glaciers are divided into three river basins, namely Indus, Ganga and Brahmaputra. In fact, it is the snow and glacier melt run-off from the Himalayan region which sustains the perennial flow of the Indus, the Ganga and the Brahmaputra river systems. 

Area: 3000000 hectares or 17% of the mountain area.
Storage: About 12,000 km3 of freshwater.
Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world. At current rate they are prohjected to disappea by the year 2035. It is projected that its area may shrinks from 500,000 to 100,000 km2 by the year 2035 with current rate.( IPCC )

  1. https://www.un-glaciers.org/en/homepage
  2. U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Department of the Interior
  3. International Year of Glaciers' Preservation 2025 - Concept Note, United Nations 

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