A first-of-its-kind global assessment has revealed that the world’s glaciers have lost ice faster than expected over the past ten years, raising sea levels even further.
A global team of researchers released a report in the journal Nature on Wednesday, finding a dramatic increase in melting over the past ten years, with roughly 36 percent more ice lost between 2012 and 2023 than it did during the same period from 2000 to 2011.
Michael Zemp, a professor at the University of Zurich and co-author of the study, said the findings were “shocking” if not altogether surprising.
Regions with smaller glaciers are losing them more quickly, and many of them “will not survive the present century.”
According to Zemp, “We will be facing higher sea-level rise until the end of this century than anticipated,” Zemp told the AFP news agency.
Globally, researchers discovered that the world’s glaciers have lost about 5% of their volume since the turn of the century, with significant regional differences ranging from a two-percent loss in Antarctica to up to 40% in the European Alps.
On average, some 273 billion tonnes of ice are being lost per year – equivalent to the world population’s water consumption for 30 years, scientists said.
The World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS), the University of Edinburgh, and the research group Earthwave collaborated to compile a “reference estimate” for tracing ice loss.
The study, which was not conducted by an unrelated University of Exeter professor, was “concerning” because it predicted further glacier losses and might reveal how global warming will affect Antarctica and Greenland’s vast ice sheets.
He claimed that when they change, we stop talking centimeters and start talking meters because “ice sheets are now losing mass at increasing rates – six times more than 30 years ago.”
Zemp warned that to save the world’s glaciers, “you have to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions, it is as simple and as complicated as that”.
Source: Aljazeera
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