Ecology
Glaciers are melting up to 100 times faster than at any time in the past 350 years. According to a new study by scientists, in Patagonia, South America, the amount of melted ice from 270 Patagonian glaciers is equivalent to the amount of water that could fill Windermere in The Lake District 1,700 times.
Researchers led by Professor Neil Glasser from Aberystwyth University analyzed the rocky debris left by glaciers on mountain slopes to find out how big they were there, and how much ice was gone.
Since Patagonia ended the Little Ice Age in the mid-17th century, 270 glaciers that now cover at least 0.4 square miles have lost 145 cubic miles of ice. Because water is denser than ice, this is equivalent to about 130 cubic miles of water.
Over the same period, temperatures in the region rose by about 1.4 degrees Celsius, scientists report in the journal Nature Geoscience.
“Over the past 30 years, the rate of ice loss by glaciers has increased 100 times, which is actually frightening,” says Professor Glasser, who conducted the research together with scientists from the University of Exeter and Stockholm University. In his opinion, South American glaciers are located at similar latitudes in the southern hemisphere as the Alps in the northern hemisphere. The same thing can happen to glaciers in the Alps and ice loss may occur faster than many scientists think, says the researcher.
However, the scientist predicts the same thing every other place on the planet. “Millions of people depend on Himalayan glaciers for water. The melting of glaciers in the short term is good news for them, as they will receive a lot of fresh water during the dry season, but in the long run this will be a big problem for them” , – the scientist notes.