Most of the glaciers in the world are seriously retreating with the climate warming; mass balances of the glaciers show a serious mass loss and a negative balance tendency. In this paper,based on the new mass balance data published by the World Glacier Monitoring Service,the current status of the glaciers in the world is summarized and compared; the regional characteristics,the change process and the overall tendency of the glacier mass balance changes in different parts of the world,as well as the recent contribution of glacier mass balance to sea level rise,are analyzed. The results showed that the global glaciers had experienced an accelerating mass loss and accelerating shrink,and the average glacier thickness had thinned 14 m from 1980 to 2011; the Alps and the Pacific Coast Ranges were particularly vulnerable,where glaciers had thinned about 30 m in average; the average mass balance changing tendency of the glaciers in different parts of the world had basically consistence with the general global average tendency; the changes of mass balance had been characterized by typical latitudinal zonality. Temporally,the change process of the mass balance of global glaciers may be divided into fluctuating positive balance type,fluctuating negative balance type and continuous increasing negative balance type. However, as a whole,the general tendency is continuous increasing negative balance. As the global climate warming in the future,the global glaciers will continue to shrink,mass loss rate will be increasing,negative balance will be increasing. The contribution of glacier mass balance to sea level rise will be increasing. It is believed that global temperature rise will be basically in synchrony.