UN Report Reveals Glaciers Melting at Record Speed
The German newspaper the Spiegel reports that “[a] new United Nations study has found that glaciers across the globe are shrinking faster than ever before. The UN says the consequences could be grim for billions of people who depend on glacial melt and urges global leaders to act swiftly on climate change.”
“Glaciers across the globe are melting faster than at any point in the last century. Many could disappear within decades, and their decline could cause droughts and chaos for billions of people who depend on rivers fed by glaciers,” the study concludes.
The United Nations Environment Programme called on “international leaders to act swiftly and drastically to address climate change, which the UNEP says is to blame for the glacial melt.”
UNEP executive director Achim Steiner in a statement that glacial melt is the “canary in the climate change coal mine.” It is absolutely essential that everyone sits up and take notice,” he said.
As the Spiegel points out, the announcement “was based on a study that tracked glacial melt at nearly 30 glaciers across the globe. Some of the most dramatic losses were in Europe; Norway’s Breidalblikkbrea glacier topped the list by shrinking 3.1 meters (10.2 feet) in 2006.” Wilfried Haeberli, director of the World Glacier Monitoring Service, a Zurich-based research institute that conducted the study explained: “The latest figures are part of what appears to be an accelerating trend with no apparent end in sight.”
Between 1980 and 1999, glacier thickness declined by an average of 0.3 meters a year. From then onwards, however, “the average annual ice loss has increased to about 0.5 meters (20 inches).”
But it’s worse than those figures indicate: “In 2006, the 30 glaciers included in the study shrank an average of 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) — more than double the rate of shrinkage in 2005.”
This study confirms an earlier study, many earlier studies actually, which conclude that the world must act quickly. The question still remains what policies are effective and what policies aren’t, but that something needs to be done is clear.
It is also clear that the United States will not take the lead role on this issue, Europe will have to do so. Perhaps European government should rise up to the occasion and study this subject more fervently and actually do what they have agreed upon in past treaties and agreements.
On the other hand, Arctic ice has not only stopped melting but has rebounded, to levels not seen in several years. This past year was so cold that is erased the past ten years’ warming.
It’s a big ol’ world in which we live. The more we look, the more we find out just how much we don’t know.
Jimmie - One year and one location doesn’t make a climate. Please site your Artic ice claim.