Glacier Watch Screensaver
The Glacier Watch screensaver runs a live counter of ice lost from the world's benchmark glaciers, extrapolated from real published annual mass-balance figures — the same anchor-and-extrapolate approach as this site's Population Clock. It's free, runs in your browser, and ESC exits.
How the Glacier Watch screensaver works
The saver starts from a real, published annual mass-balance figure for the chosen reference glacier or global glacier average.
It extrapolates that real rate into a smoothly ticking loss counter for the time you've been watching.
A small trend chart shows the real multi-year mass-balance history behind the number.
Figures are updated periodically as new annual survey data is published, not fetched live.
A worked example
Set it to Global reference glaciers and watch the counter tick upward in tonnes of ice lost — extrapolated from the real published annual average, the same honest-estimate approach as the Population Clock.
Settings & tips
- Reference glacier switches between global average and named benchmark glaciers.
- Accent recolours the counter and chart.
- Like the Population Clock, this is a real anchor rate extrapolated smoothly, not a live sensor feed.
Frequently asked questions
- Is this a live sensor reading?
- No glacier reports mass balance in real time — this extrapolates a real published annual rate, exactly like the site's Population Clock does for population.
- Where do the figures come from?
- Published benchmark-glacier mass-balance surveys (the same reference glaciers used in climate science).
- How often are the anchor numbers updated?
- Periodically, as new annual survey results are published.
- Is it free?
- Yes — free, no download, in your browser.