Paris, France - Ice loss from the world's glaciers has accelerated over the past decade, scientists said on Wednesday, warning that melting may be faster than previously expected in the coming years and drive sea levels higher.

The world's glaciers, which are important climate regulators and hold freshwater resources for billions, are rapidly melting as the world warms.

In a first-of-its-kind global assessment, an international team of researchers found a sharp increase in melting over the past decade, with around 36% more ice lost in the 2012 to 2023 period than in the years from 2000 to 2011.

On average some 273 billion tons of ice are being lost per year – equivalent to the world population's water consumption for 30 years, they said.

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The findings are "shocking" if not altogether surprising as global temperatures rise with humanity's greenhouse gas emissions, said Michael Zemp, a professor at the University of Zurich, who was a co-author of the assessment published in the journal Nature.

Overall, researchers found that the world's glaciers have lost around 5% of their volume since the turn of the century, with wide regional differences ranging from a 2% loss in Antarctica to up to 40% in the European Alps.

Zemp said that regions with smaller glaciers are losing them faster, and many "will not survive the present century".

Glaciers are the second-largest contributor to global sea-level rise – after the rise caused by the expansion of seawater as it warms.

The nearly inch of sea level rise attributed to glacier melt since 2000 means almost four million more people on the world's coasts have been made vulnerable to flooding, scientists have estimated.