According to a study published in the Journal of Glaciology, mountain glaciers on Greenland's west coast are shrinking significantly. Conducted by Italy’s National Research Council’s Institute of Polar Sciences (CNR-ISP), in collaboration with Ca' Foscari University of Venice, the Universities of Fribourg (Switzerland) and Copenhagen (Denmark), and the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS), the research analyzed over 4,000 glaciers in Western Greenland over 35 years (1985-2020). The findings reveal a sharp decline in both area and volume, signaling a rapid deterioration of glaciers distributed along coastal mountain ranges. The study utilized satellite data from the European Space Agency's Sentinel Hub, employing photogrammetric methods to measure volume loss through overlapping close-range satellite images. "The results we have processed show a reduction of almost 15% in the overall area and about 19% in the volume of ice, compared to1985", explains Renato R. Colucci, a researcher at the Cnr-Isp who led the research team. "Another interesting fact is that the glacial equilibrium line (ELA), which indicates the altitude at which a glacier can form, rose by an average of more than 150 meters during the study period, resulting in the disappearance of 279 glaciers. However, in the northernmost portion of the area, the ELA has risen by more than 250 meters". Mountain glaciers, when studied on a decadal period, provide a key signal for determining how much and how the climate interacts with the cryosphere, or the Earth's frozen territories. The study was part of the Local Glaciers Sisimiut (LOGS) project, funded by the Greenland Research Council.