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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Owen KingORCiD, Professor Bethan DaviesORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
The Arctic is one of the fastest-warming places on Earth. The High Arctic Archipelago of Svalbard contains over 1500 glaciers that have, overall, experienced widespread thinning and recession since the Little Ice Age (LIA; ∼1900 CE), and this recession has accelerated since 1990. Here, we showcase the terminal decline since the end of the LIA of Elsabreen and Ferdinandbreen, two small land-terminating glaciers in Petuniabukta, Dickson Land. We map glacier areal extents using previously published data, aerial photographs and satellite imagery (LIA to 2024) and derive ice volume changes by differencing digital elevation models (1938 to 2023). Both glaciers have lost over 93% of their glacier area since the LIA and over 96% of their ice volume since 1938. By 2024, Elsabreen had reduced to a small glacier remnant with little evidence of ice flow, and Ferdinandbreen had fragmented into several separate ice units and completely detached from its original accumulation areas. Both of these vanishing glaciers merit inclusion on the Global Glacier Casualty List.
Author(s): McCerery R, Lovell H, King O, Davies BJ, Boston CM, Malecki J, Carrivick JL, Woodward J
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Annals of Glaciology
Year: 2026
Volume: 67
Print publication date: 18/12/2025
Online publication date: 18/12/2025
Acceptance date: 10/12/2025
Date deposited: 27/02/2026
ISSN (print): 0260-3055
ISSN (electronic): 1727-5644
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
URL: https://doi.org/10.1017/aog.2025.10034
DOI: 10.1017/aog.2025.10034
Data Access Statement: Datasets of glacier outlines in .xshp format and DEMs of difference for Elsabreen and Ferdinandbreen created in this study are available on Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17879675 and https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17899856, respectively.
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