Mountain and subpolar glaciers show an increase in sensitivity to climate warming and intensification of the water cycle

The time-series of all available records of seasonal and annual glacier mass balances, equilibrium line altitude, accumulation area ratio and change in surface area of about 300 glaciers have been compiled, digitized, quality checked and analyzed over the period of almost four decades (1961 - 1998). These time-series show significant changes towards loss in glacier area and volume in global scale with accelerated rate, especially since the end of 1980's. The remarkable feature in this change is the increase of both winter and summer balances, which implies that glaciers are intensifying the water cycle in time of global warming. The sensitivity of glacier mass balance in regard to temperature and precipitation has also increased which resulted in an increase of glacier contribution to sea level rise from 0.15 mm/yr in 1961 - 1976 (10% of total sea-level rise) to 0.41 mm/yr in 1988 - 1998 (27% of total sea-level rise). Glacier contribution to the ocean has the potential to grow due to increasing snow accumulation and involving into the water cycle larger areas of individual glaciers around the Antarctic ice sheet. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.