How climate change impacts the world's glaciers

The Manila Times

How climate change impacts the world's glaciers  Glaciers around the globe are disappearing faster than ever, with the last three-year period seeing the largest glacial mass loss on record, according to a UNESCO report released on Friday, March 21.  The 9,000 gigatons of ice lost from glaciers since 1975 are roughly equivalent to "an ice block the size of Germany with the thickness of 25 meters," Michael Zemp, director of the Switzerland-based World Glacier Monitoring Service, said during a press conference announcing the report at the UN headquarters in Geneva.  The dramatic ice loss, from the Arctic to the Alps, from South America to the Tibetan Plateau, is expected to accelerate as climate change, caused by the burning of fossil fuels, pushes global temperatures higher. This would likely exacerbate economic, environmental and social problems across the world as sea levels rise and these key water sources dwindle.  GREENPEACE HANDOUT / UNTV / NASA / REUTERS VIDEO  Subscribe to The Manila Times Channel - https://tmt.ph/YTSubscribe   Visit our website at https://www.manilatimes.net   Follow us:  Facebook - https://tmt.ph/facebook  Instagram - https://tmt.ph/instagram  Twitter - https://tmt.ph/twitter  DailyMotion - https://tmt.ph/dailymotion   Subscribe to our Digital Edition - https://tmt.ph/digital   Check out our Podcasts:  Spotify - https://tmt.ph/spotify  Apple Podcasts - https://tmt.ph/applepodcasts  Amazon Music - https://tmt.ph/amazonmusic  Deezer: https://tmt.ph/deezer  Tune In: https://tmt.ph/tunein  #TheManilaTimes #worldnews  #glacier  #climatechange

Transcript

00:00Glaciers are masses of ice that form at high elevation due to snowfall staying over the

00:16entire summer and then transforming into fern and ice and flowing downhill.

00:23So glaciers are streams of frozen water that can exist and persist at very high elevation

00:31in the mountains around the world.

00:33Glaciers take up water in cold and wet periods and they provide water in hot and dry periods.

00:43And with this role, they have the possibility to fill in lags in the water availability.

00:51This makes them very important, especially in dry regions where water is intensely used

00:57for agriculture or drinking water.

01:09Glaciers are found in all major mountain ranges around the globe.

01:14The biggest glaciers are found in Alaska and Patagonia, but also around the big ice sheets

01:21of Greenland and Antarctica.

01:22We don't count these huge ice sheets, Greenland and Antarctica, as glaciers.

01:28However, the ice caps that are around these ice sheets, they are termed glaciers.

01:34The implications of this are multifaceted, which includes the threatening of the long-term

01:39water resources.

01:40So long-term water security is really at stake here.

01:44For not just a few millions, it's literally hundreds of millions directly in the Hindu

01:48Kush Himalaya region, it was estimated it could be up to almost two billion.

01:53And globally in the interconnected economy, it's everyone around the world who's indirectly

01:58impacted from these dramatic changes.

02:00If we look at the observed changes in the last decades, in the last century, we see

02:06that air temperature everywhere around the earth has strongly increased, while snow precipitation

02:14is more or less stable, or even on a decline.

02:18And these two factors combined, they result in increased melting of the ice and therefore

02:25a retreat of the glacier tongues into higher elevation.

02:30The biggest impact of glacier melt is the rise in global sea levels.

02:36So all the water that has been stored in the glaciers around the globe is released and

02:43is ending up in the oceans.

02:46This increase in global sea level by glacier melting isn't huge, it's a few millimeters

02:53per year, but still, when combined with tides and with flooding, this can be very important

03:04to many people around the earth living in the coastal regions.

03:11So this is a major impact that will increase in importance in the future and will also

03:17be very long lasting.

03:19It's not something that we'll be able to stop within the next decades.

03:24So we have to be concerned about very long time periods.

03:28As glaciers retreat, we are also seeing lots of new hazards in high mountain regions.

03:35For example, outburst floods from glacial lakes, instabilities causing ice or rock avalanches.

03:46And this can be a hazard for people going to the mountains, mountaineers or hikers,

03:53but even more so for valley communities that are living at the foot of the mountains.

03:59We can mitigate the melting of glaciers by curbing CO2 emissions.

04:06This is very clear.

04:08Glaciers are responding to rising air temperatures and we can stabilize air temperatures globally

04:15with bringing CO2 emissions to zero.

04:18So many nations around the globe are attempting this, are setting goals to reduce the CO2

04:26emissions.

04:27However, it's not fast enough at the moment.

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