The rate of South American glaciers’ melting in the last 30 years has shot up 100 times above the average of the past 350 years, shocked researchers said.

A team of British and Swedish researchers led by Prof Neil Glasser of Aberystwyth University gauged the stretch of rocky debris left by glaciers in South America and the starting line of vegetation.

Speaking on the findings, Prof Glasser said, “The real killer is that in the last 30 years the rate of loss has gone up 100 times above the long-term average. It’s scary.”

Researchers said that the rate of melting at the start of the 20th century was much slower than formerly estimated, but during the last three decades it has been considerably faster than suspected.

Since the Little Ice Age ended in Patagonia 350 years ago, the 270 glaciers that now cover an area of at least one sq. km. have lost 606 cubic km of ice.

Melting mountain glaciers are making sea levels rise faster than anytime. According to the researchers, Ice lost from the Patagonian glaciers is equal to a fifth more than the contents of Lake Erie, and is enough to fill Bassenthwaite in the Lake District a total of 6,060 times.