Category Archives: Glaciers

Glacial lakes threaten millions with flooding as planet heats up

Posted on by

More than 12,000 deaths have already been attributed to glacial lake outburst floods worldwide

An increasing number of people are being threatened by flooding caused by glacial lakes bursting, scientists have warned.

As the planet warms and glaciers recede, meltwater accumulates and forms lakes, often as a result of ice or moraine acting as a dam. Since 1990, the volume, area and number of these glacial lakes has increased by 50% globally. When these lakes become too full there is a risk that they may breach or overflow, releasing huge volumes of water and causing catastrophic flooding.

Continue reading...

Alpine plants face extinction as melting glaciers force them higher, warns study

Posted on by

‘Escalator to extinction’ means aggressive species will eventually take over, threatening the entire mountain ecosystem

Alpine flowers could go extinct after glaciers disappear as more competitive species colonise terrain higher up the mountain, new research has warned.

Glaciers are retreating at historically unprecedented rates, exposing new land for plants to grow, which benefits delicate alpine species in the short term. However, these early pioneers – some of which are endemic – soon become endangered as more aggressive species take over, driving them out of their remaining habitat and decreasing overall biodiversity, according to the paper published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.

Continue reading...

Terrawatch: dust is speeding up melting of Himalayan snow

Posted on by

Human activities are increasing wind-blown dust, depleting crucial freshwater supply

Himalayan snow and ice is diminishing fast. Global heating is certainly playing a significant role, but now a recent study in Nature Climate Change reveals that wind-blown dust is worsening the melting effect.

Winter snowfall and spring snowmelt provide more than half of the annual freshwater needs of around 700 million people in south Asia, but over the last 30 years the overall snow mass on the high mountains of Asia, which include the Himalayas, the Hindu Kush and the Karakoram, has decreased.

Continue reading...

Satellite images show rapid growth of glacial lakes worldwide

Posted on by

Number of glacial lakes rose by 53% in 1990-2018 to reveal impact of increased meltwater

Glacial lakes have grown rapidly around the world in recent decades, according to satellite images that reveal the impact of increased meltwater draining off retreating glaciers.

Scientists analysed more than quarter of a million satellite images to assess how lakes formed by melting glaciers have been affected by global heating and other processes.

Continue reading...

Greenland ice sheet lost a record 1m tonnes of ice per minute in 2019

Posted on by

Climate-driven loss is likely to be the worst for centuries, and is pushing up sea levels

The Greenland ice sheet lost a record amount of ice in 2019, equivalent to a million tonnes per minute across the year, satellite data shows.

The climate crisis is heating the Arctic at double the rate in lower latitudes, and the ice cap is the biggest single contributor to sea level rise, which already imperils coasts around the world. The ice sheet shrank by 532bn tonnes last year as its surface melted and glaciers fell into the ocean and would have filled seven Olympic-sized swimming pools per second.

Continue reading...

Italian homes evacuated over risk of Mont Blanc glacier collapse

Posted on by

Roads near Courmayeur closed to tourists because of threat from falling Planpincieux ice

Homes have been evacuated in Courmayeur in Italy’s Aosta valley, after a renewed warning that a huge portion of a Mont Blanc glacier is at risk of collapse.

The measures were introduced on Wednesday morning after experts from the Fondazione Montagne Sicura (Safe Mountains Foundation) said 500,000 cubic metres of ice was in danger of sliding off the Planpincieux glacier on the Grandes Jorasses park.

Continue reading...

‘There’s still a choice’: New Zealand’s melting glaciers show the human fingerprints of climate change

Posted on by

New research has found extreme melting of the country’s glaciers in 2018 was at least ten times more likely due to human-caused global heating

Twice a year, glaciologist Lauren Vargo and her colleagues set up camp beside two small lakes close to New Zealand’s Brewster glacier. Each time the trek to carry the measuring stakes takes a little bit longer as the glacier’s terminus gets further away.

Dr Vargo, a native of Ohio now working at the Antarctic Research Centre at the Victoria University of Wellington, is studying New Zealand’s glaciers from the air and on the ice.

Continue reading...

Canada: three killed in glacier tour bus crash in Alberta

Posted on by

The bus was on the steep road to the famed Athabasca glacier when it lost control and rolled

A glacier tour bus rolled over in Canada’s southern province of Alberta, killing three people and injuring several, according to reports.

A sightseeing bus carrying 27 passengers overturned en route to the glacier near the Columbia Icefield in Alberta’s Jasper National Park, according to a report by CBC.

Continue reading...

Mont Blanc’s melting glacier yields time capsule of Indian history

Posted on by

Retreating French ice leaves behind newspapers proclaiming Indira Gandhi’s rise to PM, probably from 1966 plane crash

The Mont Blanc glacier in the French Alps is yielding more secrets as it melts – this time a clutch of newspapers with banner headlines from when Indira Gandhi became India’s first, and so far only, female prime minister in 1966.

The copies of Indian newspapers the National Herald and the Economic Times were probably aboard an Air India Boeing 707 that crashed on the mountain on 24 January, 1966, claiming 177 lives.

Continue reading...

Italian team covers glacier with giant white sheets to slow melting

Posted on by

Every summer, the Presena glacier in northern Italy is protected from the sun with huge reflective tarps

A vast tarpaulin unravels, gathering speed as it bounces down the glacier over glinting snow. Summer is here and the alpine ice is being protected from global warming.

In northern Italy, the Presena glacier has lost more than one third of its volume since 1993.

Continue reading...

‘The human fingerprint is everywhere’: Met Office’s alarming warning on climate

Posted on by

Exclusively compiled data from the Hadley Centre’s supercomputer shows alarming climate trajectory

The human fingerprint on the climate is now unmistakable and will become increasingly evident over the coming decades, the UK Met Office has confirmed after 30 years of pioneering study.

Since the 1990s, global temperatures have warmed by half a degree, Arctic sea ice has shrunk by almost 2 million km2, sea-levels have risen by about 10cm and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by 60 parts per million (17%), according to figures exclusively compiled for the Guardian to mark the 30th anniversary of the Met Office’s Hadley Centre for climate science and services.

Continue reading...

Greenland’s ice sheet melting seven times faster than in 1990s

Posted on by

Scale and speed of loss much higher than predicted, threatening inundation for hundreds of millions of people

Greenland’s ice sheet is melting much faster than previously thought, threatening hundreds of millions of people with inundation and bringing some of the irreversible impacts of the climate emergency much closer.

Ice is being lost from Greenland seven times faster than it was in the 1990s, and the scale and speed of ice loss is much higher than was predicted in the comprehensive studies of global climate science by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, according to data.

Continue reading...

Climate emergency: world ‘may have crossed tipping points’

Posted on by

Warning of ‘existential threat to civilisation’ as impacts lead to cascade of unstoppable events

The world may already have crossed a series of climate tipping points, according to a stark warning from scientists. This risk is “an existential threat to civilisation”, they say, meaning “we are in a state of planetary emergency”.

Tipping points are reached when particular impacts of global heating become unstoppable, such as the runaway loss of ice sheets or forests. In the past, extreme heating of 5C was thought necessary to pass tipping points, but the latest evidence suggests this could happen between 1C and 2C.

Continue reading...

Glacial rivers absorb carbon faster than rainforests, scientists find

Posted on by

‘Total surprise’ discovery overturns conventional understanding of rivers

In the turbid, frigid waters roaring from the glaciers of Canada’s high Arctic, researchers have made a surprising discovery: for decades, the northern rivers secretly pulled carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at a rate faster than the Amazon rainforest.

The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, flip the conventional understanding of rivers, which are largely viewed as sources of carbon emissions.

Continue reading...

Melting glaciers reveal five new islands in the Arctic

Posted on by

Russian navy discovers yet-to-be-named islands previously hidden under glaciers

The Russian navy says it has discovered five new islands revealed by melting glaciers in the remote Arctic.

An expedition in August and September charted the islands, which have yet to be named and were previously hidden under glaciers, said the head of the northern fleet, Vice-Admiral Alexander Moiseyev.

Continue reading...

The world has a third pole – and it’s melting quickly

Posted on by

An IPCC report says two-thirds of glaciers on the largest ice sheet after the Arctic and Antarctic are set to disappear in 80 years

Many moons ago in Tibet, the Second Buddha transformed a fierce nyen (a malevolent mountain demon) into a neri (the holiest protective warrior god) called Khawa Karpo, who took up residence in the sacred mountain bearing his name. Khawa Karpo is the tallest of the Meili mountain range, piercing the sky at 6,740 metres (22,112ft) above sea level. Local Tibetan communities believe that conquering Khawa Karpo is an act of sacrilege and would cause the deity to abandon his mountain home. Nevertheless, there have been several failed attempts by outsiders – the best known by an international team of 17, all of whom died in an avalanche during their ascent on 3 January 1991. After much local petitioning, in 2001 Beijing passed a law banning mountaineering there.

However, Khawa Karpo continues to be affronted more insidiously. Over the past two decades, the Mingyong glacier at the foot of the mountain has dramatically receded. Villagers blame disrespectful human behaviour, including an inadequacy of prayer, greater material greed and an increase in pollution from tourism. People have started to avoid eating garlic and onions, burning meat, breaking vows or fighting for fear of unleashing the wrath of the deity. Mingyong is one of the world’s fastest shrinking glaciers, but locals cannot believe it will die because their own existence is intertwined with it. Yet its disappearance is almost inevitable.

Continue reading...

Iceland holds funeral for first glacier lost to climate change

Posted on by

Nation commemorates the once huge Okjokull glacier with plaque that warns action is needed to prevent climate change

Iceland has marked its first-ever loss of a glacier to climate change as scientists warn that hundreds of other ice sheets on the subarctic island risk the same fate.

As the world recently marked the warmest July ever on record, a bronze plaque was mounted on a bare rock in a ceremony on the barren terrain once covered by the Okjokull glacier in western Iceland.

Continue reading...

Icelandic memorial warns future: ‘Only you know if we saved glaciers’

Posted on by

Plaque marking Okjökull, the first glacier lost to climate crisis, to be unveiled in August

The first of Iceland’s 400 glaciers to be lost to the climate crisis will be remembered with a memorial plaque – and a sombre warning for the future – to be unveiled by scientists and local people next month.

The former Okjökull glacier, which a century ago covered 15 sq km (5.8 sq miles) of mountainside in western Iceland and measured 50 metres thick, has shrunk to barely 1 sq km of ice less than 15 metres deep and lost its status as a glacier.

Continue reading...

Glacial melting in Antarctica may become irreversible

Posted on by

Thwaites glacier is likely to thaw and trigger 50cm sea level rise, US study suggests

Antarctica faces a tipping point where glacial melting will accelerate and become irreversible even if global heating eases, research suggests.

A Nasa-funded study found instability in the Thwaites glacier meant there would probably come a point when it was impossible to stop it flowing into the sea and triggering a 50cm sea level rise. Other Antarctic glaciers were likely to be similarly unstable.

Continue reading...