Thousands of glaciers to melt each year

Thousands of glaciers will vanish each year in the coming decades, leaving only a fraction standing by the end of the century unless global warming is curbed, a study showed on Monday.

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Government action on climate change could determine whether the world loses 2,000 or 4,000 glaciers annually by the middle of the century, according to the research.

A few degrees could be the difference between preserving almost half of the world’s glaciers in 2100 -- or fewer than 10 percent.

"Our results underscore the urgency of ambitious climate policy," said the study published in the journal Nature Climate Change and led by glaciologist Lander Van Tricht.

Researchers usually focus on the loss of mass and area of the world's ice giants, but Van Tricht and his colleagues set out to determine how many individual glaciers could melt away annually in this century.