High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Crucial to the survival of a glacier is its mass balance, the difference between accumulation and ablation (melting and sublimation). Climate change may cause variations in both temperature and snowfall, causing changes in mass balance. Changes in mass balance control a glacier`s long term behavior and is the most sensitive climate indicator on a glacier. From 1980-2008 the mean cumulative mass loss of glaciers reporting mass balance to the World Glacier Monitoring Service is -12 m. This includes 19 consecutive years of negative mass balances.