Climate change shrinks glaciers faster than ever, losing 7 trillion tons since 2000

According to a huge new study, climate change is accelerating the melting of mountain glaciers in the world.

According to the study, global glaciers lost ice at a rate of about 255 billion tons (231 billion tons) from 2000 to 2011, but increased to about 346 billion tons (314 billion) per year over the next decade, according to the study. ton). In the nature of this week’s diary.

The acceleration of melting has been even greater in the past few years, losing a record 600.4 billion tons (54.8 billion tons) in 2023, which was analyzed last year.

The study draws on international efforts, including 233 estimates of glacier weight changes. The study says global glaciers have lost more than 70,000 tons of ice (6.5 trillion tons) since 2000.

“What people should realize, maybe worry is that yes, glaciers are indeed retreating and disappearing, like we said. Glacierologists from the Denmark and Greenland Geological Survey, one of the approximately 60 authors of the study William Colgan said.

The study found that Alaska’s glaciers melted the fastest, with any of 19 areas losing about 67 billion tons (61 billion tons) of ice, the largest net ice loss.

The report said that in the past 24 years, Central Europe’s glaciers have lost the highest ice scores in any region, now 39% smaller than in 2000. Corgen said he was most worried about the Alps because “higher temperatures in summer have been slamming the Alps. Transparent

Fifteen years ago, scientists were most worried about the Andes and Patagonian glaciers, but the Alps shrank so quickly that they could eventually disappear.

“Glaciers are the non-political and just sentinels of climate change, and their decline depicts a clear picture of acceleration,” said Gwenn Flowers, a professor of geosciences at Simon Fraser University in Canada.

Ice scientist Ted Scambos at the University of Colorado is not part of the study, saying that glaciers have grown in the past, and for the sake of locality, it is not known for reasons of climate change. What happened now is different and clear: “This is due to the increase in greenhouse gases directly caused by the combustion of coal, oil and gas. …No rhetoric, tweets or manifesto will change that.”

Scambos, Flowers and other outside scientists say the assessment is sober, accurate, but not surprising.

Many places, such as those in the western United States, now see extra water from rapidly melting glaciers and benefit from this lift, but as the glacier melts, that will soon disappear.

Ice in Greenland or Antarctica contributes more to the glacial effect than ice loss. The report said that only water-warming water plays a greater role in sea level rise.

The overall glacier loss rate is similar to earlier and less comprehensive studies, and may be slightly lower even if it may be slightly lower. But the new work could trigger new forecasts that will be even more frustrating in the future as information is better and exacerbates warming, Colgen said.

“If you lose 5.5% of the global ice volume in more than 20 years, it’s obviously unsustainable,” Colgen said. “That’s going to catch up with you.”

In 2023, over 600 billion tons of glacier losses “sounds incredible now, but it may sound normal in 10 years from now,” Colgen said. “Overall, mountain glaciers can quickly transform into collective ice loss.”

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