Glaciers distinct from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are shrinking rapidly, altering regional hydrology¹, raising global sea level² and elevating natural hazards³. Yet, owing to the scarcity of constrained mass loss observations, glacier evolution during the satellite era is known only partially, as a geographic and temporal patchwork^4,5. Here we reveal the accelerated, albeit contrasting, patterns of glacier mass loss during the early twenty-first century. Using largely untapped satellite archives, we chart surface elevation changes at a high spatiotemporal resolution over all of Earth’s glaciers. We extensively validate our estimates against independent, high-precision measurements and present a globally complete and consistent estimate of glacier mass change. We show that during 2000–2019, glaciers lost a mass of 267 ± 16 gigatonnes per year, equivalent to 21 ± 3 per cent of the observed sea-level rise⁶. We identify a mass loss acceleration of 48 ± 16 gigatonnes per year per decade, explaining 6 to 19 per cent of the observed acceleration of sea-level rise. Particularly, thinning rates of glaciers outside ice sheet peripheries doubled over the past two decades. Glaciers currently lose more mass, and at similar or larger acceleration rates, than the Greenland or Antarctic ice sheets taken separately^7,8,9. By uncovering the patterns of mass change in many regions, we find contrasting glacier fluctuations that agree with the decadal variability in precipitation and temperature. These include a North Atlantic anomaly of decelerated mass loss, a strongly accelerated loss from northwestern American glaciers, and the apparent end of the Karakoram anomaly of mass gain¹⁰. We anticipate our highly resolved estimates to advance the understanding of drivers that govern the distribution of glacier change, and to extend our capabilities of predicting these changes at all scales. Predictions robustly benchmarked against observations are critically needed to design adaptive policies for the local- and regional-scale management of water resources and cryospheric risks, as well as for the global-scale mitigation of sea-level rise.

不同于格陵兰和南极冰盖的冰川正在迅速缩小，改变了区域水文¹，提高了全球海平面²并加剧了自然灾害³。然而，由于缺乏受限的质量损失观测，卫星时代的冰川演化仅作为地理和时间拼凑而成的部分已知^4,5. 在这里，我们揭示了 21 世纪初冰川质量损失的加速模式，尽管对比鲜明。利用大量未开发的卫星档案，我们绘制了地球所有冰川上高时空分辨率的地表海拔变化图。我们根据独立的高精度测量广泛验证了我们的估计，并提出了全球范围内完整且一致的冰川质量变化估计。我们表明，在 2000 年至 2019 年期间，冰川每年损失 267 ± 16 吉吨的质量，相当于观测到的海平面上升的 21 ± 3% ⁶. 我们确定了每十年每年 48 ± 16 吉吨的质量损失加速，解释了观测到的海平面上升加速的 6% 到 19%。特别是在过去二十年中，冰盖外围以外的冰川变薄率翻了一番。与单独采取的格陵兰或南极冰原^7,8,9相比，冰川目前损失更多的质量，并且加速度相似或更大。通过揭示许多地区的质量变化模式，我们发现对比鲜明的冰川波动与降水和温度的年代际变化一致。其中包括北大西洋质量损失减速异常、美国西北部冰川强烈加速损失以及喀喇昆仑山脉质量增加异常明显结束¹⁰. 我们期望我们高度解析的估计能够促进对控制冰川变化分布的驱动因素的理解，并扩展我们在所有尺度上预测这些变化的能力。迫切需要以观测为基准的预测，以设计适应性政策，用于水资源和冰冻圈风险的地方和区域管理，以及全球范围内的海平面上升缓解。