SYDNEY, Aug. 4 (Xinhua) -- Nearly a quarter of the glaciers on Australia's remote Heard Island have vanished since 1947 as a result of climate change, new research revealed on Monday.

The study finds that Heard Island, a sub-Antarctic territory located 4,100 km southwest of Perth in Western Australia, has lost around 64 square km, or 23 percent, of its glacier coverage since 1947, according to a statement released Monday by Monash University in Australia's Melbourne.

Researchers from Monash University-led Australian Research Council research center's Securing Antarctica's Environmental Future (SAEF) program used topographical maps from 1947 and satellite imagery from historical and current Earth observation platforms to study the remote island.

The resulting glacier inventory catalogues 29 glaciers, tracing their outlines in 1947, 1988 and 2019.

The study also documents key morphological features, including area, slope, aspect and elevation, providing data for estimating mass balance, glacier volume, surface velocity and the impact of volcanic and other surface debris.

"These findings are a bellwether of change for our global climate system," said SAEF Research Fellow Levan Tielidze, lead author of the study detailed in The Cryosphere published by the European Geosciences Union.

"While Heard Island is just about as remote as it's possible to be on Earth, it has still suffered profound consequences from climate warming, which is almost certainly due to rising greenhouse gas emissions in the 20th and 21st centuries," Tielidze said.

The scientists plan a late-year expedition to Heard Island, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage-listed site located about 1,700 km north of Antarctica, to evaluate biodiversity risks from rapid glacier melt.

Their ongoing computer modeling aims to predict the future of the island's glaciers under scenarios of both significant emissions reductions and continued high emissions.

The island made headlines when U.S. President Donald Trump imposed a 10 percent tariff on it and nearby McDonald Island, despite no trade or visits since 2016. ■