A new report finds that glaciers around the globe melted and thinned twice as fast in 2006 as they did in 2004. Ice at the North Pole isn’t faring much better: This winter, the thin seasonal ice spread farther than usual, but the thicker perennial ice thinned out and retreated.
First, the glaciers. The World Glacier Monitoring Service based at the University of Zurich in Switzerland reported that 30 glaciers in nine mountain ranges in Alaska, Andes, Antarctica, the Alps and the Himalayas more than doubled their rate of melting and thinning. Glaciers that from 1980-1999 lost about a foot per year now shrink by about 20 inches per year. The accelerated melting could mean more floods in areas downstream and then eventually water shortages as glaciers shrink. This could hit mostly poor areas, such as south Asia, particularly hard.
Speaking of south Asia, NASA’s Earth Observatory featured a photo this week of the Chorabari glacier (pictured), one of many that feeds the Ganges River. This glacier has retreated an estimated 860 feet since 1962 — almost 19 feet per year! As NASA points out in the article, maybe it’s because temperatures in India increased almost 4 degrees Fahrenheit between the 1980’s and 2000.
In its coverage of the glacier report, the New York Times cited scientists not involved with the report as saying that year-to-year changes don’t always indicate a trend, but with mountain glaciers the long-term trend is toward a warming world with less mountain ice.
The San Francisco Chronicle also covered the latest news about sea ice near the North Pole. The old, thick ice that once covered 60 percent of the polar cap has shrunk back to 6 percent. From the air, the region appears covered with ice, but as one scientist said, it’s so thin “it’s a facade, like a Hollywood set.”
These two examples of melting ice are signs that the climate is changing. Is this “Farewell to Ice” as Andrew Revkin says in his blog? It may be. At the very least, as the planet continues to warm, we can expect more news about melting ice for years to come.
This week there was also news of melting in Antarctica:
– “Slab of Antarctic ice shelf collapses amid warming,” Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSN2529744920080325?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
The Wilkins Ice Shelf started disintegrating February 28. Scientists note it is a rare event because part of the shelf just shattered, instead of breaking off and floating awway.
This melting won’t raise sea levels, because the ice shelf floats in the ocean. But according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, the melting underscores the significant warming that is taking place on the Antarctic peninsula. See their press release here: http://nsidc.org/news/press/20080325_Wilkins.html
-dan