The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has pointed to the importance of mountain glaciers as sensitive indicators of climate change.

BBC: Massive melting of Andes glaciers

Global warming is melting mountain glaciers, spawning severe risks to sensitive ecosystems and putting the future of humanity in peril, the study concludes.

FORBES: Climate Change: Vatican Enters the Fray

As far as current global observations are concerned, Hansen cites both the decline of Arctic sea ice and the worldwide retreat of mountain glaciers as causes for major concern.

CNN: Carbon dioxide levels already a danger

With mountain glaciers typically only tens of metres thick, this meant, said WGMS director Wilfried Haeberli, that many would disappear on a timescale of decades if the trend continued.

BBC: NEWS | Science/Nature | Melting of glaciers 'speeds up'

The most visible change is seen in the mountain glaciers, with loss of part of their mass due to decreasing thickness and a substantial recession in the last 100 years.

UNESCO: Dublin Core

As a result we risk expanding desertification, food shortages, increased storm intensities, loss of coral reefs and the disappearance of mountain glaciers that supply water to hundreds of millions of people.

CNN: Carbon dioxide levels already a danger

It includes striking examples, such as the melting glaciers of Kilimanjaro (the highest mountain in Africa) which have lost 80% of their surface area during the twentieth century due to the combined effects of climate change and human activities.

UNESCO: THEMES

With a long ascent to about 5, 100 metres, this mountain is a great last test before heading to the glaciers.

BBC: Scaling the Ecuadorean Andes

"From 1850 to 1980 Alpine glaciers lost half their volume, on average, " says mountain expert Bruno Messerli of the University of Berne (Switzerland).

UNESCO: 83e