The year 2008 will likely rank as one of the hottest on record, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and the world's ice is quickly disappearing. Indeed, the average rate of glacial melting and thinning more than doubled from the 2004-2005 range to the 2005-2006 range. Add to that the recent collapse of arctic ice shelves, and there can be little doubt that something's in the air - and that something is carbon dioxide, the leading cause of global warming.
But the issue is no longer whether the planet is heating up. A growing body of evidence points to the same conclusion - that temperatures are on the rise. What is at issue is the consequences of that warming. And scientists believe that the world's melting ice is one of the most significant harbingers yet.
Shrinking Glaciers
The World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS), an organization based at the University of Zurich and supported by UNEP, has been monitoring glaciers for over a century. According to the March 16, 2008 UNEP press release "Meltdown in the Mountains," WGMS scientists have gathered data from 30 monitored glaciers and have found that "between the years 2004-2005 and 2005-2006 the average rate of melting and thinning more than doubled."
This accelerated thaw is not an isolated event. The melting trend was already being seen during the 1980s and 1990s, when loss rates averaged .3 meters per year. Even more startling is the fact that 1998 saw a record loss of .7 meters.
Since the turn of the century, however, the 1998 record was exceeded in 2003, 2004, and 2006, when the monitored glaciers lost 1.5 meters. In fact, since 1980, the WGMS-monitored glaciers have lost nearly 12 meters, or about 38 feet. In North America, Alaska's Glacier Bay provides a prime example of how quickly the ice is disappearing, where once impassable waters now flow openly as glaciers retreat up the valleys.
Melting Ice Shelves
Yet glaciers are not the only ice to suffer the consequences of a warming planet. The Arctic ice shelves are also succumbing to the hotter temperatures, not surprising given that the 10 warmest years since 1850 have all occurred since 1997, according to UNEP.
The results of such warming can clearly be seen on Canada's Ellesmere Island in the Arctic Ocean, where a quarter of the ancient ice shelves have collapsed. In fact, the Arctic ice cover has shrunk in the last century from 9,000 square kilometers to about 1,000. And the Antarctic ice sheets are vanishing just as quickly.
Disappearing Water Supplies
Yet the disturbing trends of melting ice signal more than an increase in exposed rock. According to the UNEP press release, "Millions if not billions of people depend directly or indirectly on these natural water storage facilities for drinking water, agriculture, industry and power generation during key parts of the year."
For example, half a billion people in the Himalaya-Hindu-Kush region rely on glacial melt waters - and another quarter of a billion downstream. However, because of global warming and the subsequent disappearance of the glaciers, major tributaries such as the Ganga and Indus could become no more than seasonal rivers, resulting in critical ramifications for the poor. At the current rate of melting, these regions could be without adequate water within decades.
If governments do not act quickly, the rate of ice melt will only accelerate, leading to devastating conditions across the globe. Combine this with other consequences of climate change - such as devastating floods, persistent droughts, and massively destructive cyclones - and the need for swift, decisive action becomes evident even to the most resolute polluter. Indeed, the melting ice is the canary in the coal mine, and if the warning is not heeded, it will be too late for everyone.
R.H. Sheldon - A number of years ago, long before I moved to the Northwest, I hitchhiked with a friend across Washington state to northern Idaho. We got ...
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