A new study by the European Union of Geosciences predicts that roughly half the volume of glaciers in the Alps will be lost between 2017 and 2050. To date, as a result of the analysis, the most detailed forecasts of the state of all alpine glaciers have been obtained.
The study's lead author Harry Cecollari, a scientist at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forestry, Snow and Landscape Research, says the future state of the glaciers will be highly dependent on how the climate changes.
“In the event of a weaker warming, a much larger proportion of the glaciers could be saved,” Cecollari explained.
On the other hand, the researchers found that most of the ice can be lost no matter how much greenhouse gas emissions are reduced.
To study the fate of alpine glaciers in a warming climate, the team used new computer models and observational data to study how the ice would change under different scenarios. The experts used 2017 as their “today's” benchmark.
In a limited warming scenario, greenhouse gas emissions will peak in the next few years and then decline rapidly, limiting additional global warming to 2 ° C by the end of the century.
The study showed that in this case, alpine glaciers will shrink to just over a third of their present volume by 2100.
The high emissions scenario will occur if emissions continue to grow rapidly over the next few decades.
Promotional video:
“In this pessimistic case, by 2100, the Alps will be largely ice-free and only isolated areas of ice will remain at high altitude, which will be about 5% or less of today's ice volume,” said study co-author Matthias Huss.
"By 2050, the Alps will have lost about 50% of their current glacier volume in all scenarios," Cecollari explained.
"The reason the volume loss is largely independent of greenhouse gas emissions until 2050 is that the rise in global average temperature with increasing greenhouse gas emissions will only become more noticeable in the second half of the century."
“Another reason is that glaciers now have“too much”ice: their volume, especially at lower altitudes, still reflects the colder climate of the past, so glaciers are slow to respond to changing climatic conditions. Even if we manage to stop climate warming by keeping it at the level of the last 10 years, glaciers will still lose about 40% of their present volume by 2050 due to this delayed response of glaciers to global warming."
The research was published in the journal Cryosphere.
PS:
The Alps as we knew them will soon cease to exist. It's sad. By 2050, half of the glaciers there will simply melt. One natural landmark will soon be reduced.
However, this process is not local, but global. The climate of the planet is starting to go “into the gears”. News feeds are full of messages about anomalous natural phenomena around the world.
Either a gigantic hail will fall, then a wave from nowhere will fall on the shore, karst sinkholes, landslides, fires, floods, droughts and the end and edge is not visible to these disasters.
Fortunately, most of this is happening outside of Russia. From time to time, we get it, of course, but against the general background we live in a fairly stable climatic island.
Of course, you shouldn't be discouraged. Events are taking place on the course of which we cannot influence in any way, and therefore we will enjoy everything that our planet gives us while we still have all this …