Alps Glaciers to disappear by 2050!
posted in Amazing Facts, Global Warming, Pollution |
This loss of glaciers could lead to loss and change in supply of drinking and irrigation water, leading to more falling rocks, and destroy the European ski industry.
On an average around 3 percent of Alpine glacial ice is lost every year, according to Roland Psenner, a fresh water scientist at the University of Innsbruck in Austria. That corresponds to around 3.3 feet (1 meter) of ice thickness.
Ten percent of the ice was gone in the record-breaking heat of 2003. Around seven percent was gone in 2006 according to Psenner.
“If the melting goes on at this pace, glaciers will be gone by 2030 to 2050—except some high-altitude sites in the French, Swiss, and Italian Alps,” he wrote in an email to National Geographic News.
Yet another Warning!
Lonnie Thompson is a glaciologist at the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University. He says that the loss of glacier ice in the Alps is consistent with global trends. It is the same story all over the world.
“At all these sites it’s the same story. Not only are the glaciers retreating, they are accelerating in the rate at which they are retreating,” Thompson said. “That’s very consistent with what’s going on with the glaciers in the Alps.”
That Alpine glaciers are melting fast is old news to European ski resorts, which are watching the multimillion-dollar winter tourism trade trickle away.
Cause for Melting
Global warming along with the greenhouse gases seems to be the main cause of the melting glaciers. Studies also suggest that Alpine glaciers almost disappeared at least once in the past 10,000 years.
This melting trend is consistent with the projections that were made based on warming occurring due to increase in greenhouse gases in our atmosphere.
It is important to note that the past glacial melting occurred when atmospheric levels of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) were 280 parts per million. Today’s carbon dioxide levels are approaching 385 parts per million.