A single large glacier can contain tens of millions of times the mass of a small glacier. Nevertheless, very small glaciers (with area ≤1 kmsup2/sup) are so numerous that their contribution to the world's total ice volume is significant and may be a notable source of error if excluded. With current glacier inventories, total global volume errors on the order of 10% are possible. However, to reduce errors to below 1% requires the inclusion of glaciers that are smaller than those recorded in most inventories. At the global scale, 1% accuracy requires a list of all glaciers and ice caps (GIC, exclusive of the ice sheets) larger than 1 kmsup2/sup, and for regional estimates requires a complete list of all glaciers down to the smallest possible size. For this reason, sea-level rise estimates and other total mass and total volume analyses should not omit the world's smallest glaciers. In particular, upscaling GIC inventories has been common practice in sea level estimates, but downscaling may also be necessary to include the smallest glaciers.
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机译：一个大冰川的质量可能是小冰川的数千万倍。尽管如此，非常小的冰川（面积小于1 km 2 ）数量众多，以至于它们对世界总冰量的贡献是巨大的，如果排除，可能是一个明显的误差来源。根据当前的冰川存量，全球总体积误差可能约为10％。但是，要将误差降低到1％以下需要包括比大多数清单中记录的冰川还要小的冰川。在全球范围内，要达到1％的精度，就需要列出所有大于1 km 2 的冰川和冰盖（GIC，不包括冰盖），而对于区域估算，则需要列出所有冰川的完整清单减小到最小尺寸。因此，海平面上升估算以及其他总质量和总体积分析不应忽略世界上最小的冰川。特别是，在海平面估算中，按惯例增加GIC存量已成为惯例，但为包括最小的冰川，也有必要缩小规模。
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