BLOOMINGTON, USA, May 30 (IPS) – Almost 40 percent of glaciers that exist now are already in danger of melting even if global temperature stabilized at present-day conditions, a study says.
An international study published in the journal Science finds that glaciers are even more sensitive to global warming than previously estimated.
More than 75 percent of glacier mass will be gone if global temperature rises to the 2.7°C that the world is heading towards, according to the trajectory set by current climate policies.
But meeting the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C would preserve 54 percent of glacier mass.
“Our study makes it painfully clear that every fraction of a degree matters,” Dr. Harry Zekollari, co-author of the research and Associate professor at the Vrije Universiteit in Brussels, said.
“The choices we make today will resonate for centuries, determining how much of our glaciers can be preserved.”
According to the papers’ co-lead author, Dr. Lilian Schuster, glaciers are regarded as a good indicator of climate change because their retreat allows researchers to see how climate is changing.
“But the situation for glaciers is actually far worse than visible in the mountains today,” she added.
Most important glaciers are even more sensitive
Impact of rising temperatures is skewed mostly by the very large glaciers around Antarctica and Greenland. According to the research, glaciers most important to human communities are even more sensitive, with several of them losing nearly all glacier ice already at 2°C.
The glacier regions, including the European Alps, the Rockies of the Western U.S. and Canada, and Iceland, may lose almost 85-90 percent of their ice in comparison to 2020 levels at 2°C warming.
But Scandinavia will no longer have glacier ice at that level of temperature rise.
The Hindu Kush Himalaya region, where glaciers feed river basins supporting 2 billion people, might lose 75 percent of its ice compared to the 2020 level at a 2°C temperature rise scenario.
Staying in line with the Paris Agreement goal preserves at least some glacier ice in all regions, even Scandinavia, with 20-30 percent remaining in the four most sensitive regions and 40-45 percent in the Himalayas and Caucasus.
This report reiterates the growing urgency of the 1.5°C temperature goal and rapid decarbonization to achieve it.
A team of 21 scientists from 10 countries used eight different glacier models to calculate the potential ice loss of the more than 200,000 glaciers worldwide under a wide range of global temperature scenarios. For each scenario, they assumed that temperatures would remain constant for thousands of years.
Researchers found that in all scenarios, the glaciers lose mass rapidly over decades and then continue to melt at a slower pace for centuries, even without further warming. This means they will feel the impact of today’s heat for a long time before settling into a new balance as they retreat to higher altitudes.
But glaciers in the Tropics–the central Andes of Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia, as well as East Africa and Indonesia—appear to maintain higher levels of ice, but this is only because they have lost so much already.
Venezuela’s final glacier, Humboldt, lost glacier status in 2024; Indonesia’s ironically named “Infinity Glacier” is likely to follow within the next two years. Germany lost one of its last five remaining glaciers during a heat wave in 2022, and Slovenia likely lost its last real glacier a few decades ago.
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