The melting of glaciers is causing the melting of extensive ice masses in the Polar Lands and the glaciers of the mountain ranges. Until now, the phenomenon has particularly affected Greenland and Antarctica.
The melting of the ice is due to the constant increase in the temperature of the planet (global warming) caused, in particular, by the increasingly massive emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, mainly due to the combustion of fossil products such as oil, coal, methane.
Unfortunately the news is from a few months ago, we have reached the point of no return: in the last 20 years the melting of glaciers has accelerated on a global scale losing 267 billion tons of ice per year, with a surge of 130% between 2000 and 2019. The accurate photograph of this change was the subject of the study published in Nature by an international team led by the University of Toulouse: these are new very high-precision measurements of over 217,000 glaciers in the world, practically all existing ones excluding the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets, thanks to which it has been possible to measure the thickness variations of almost all the world’s glaciers, and not only of those few hundred that are usually monitored because they are more easily accessible.
The conclusions drawn by the scholars are very alarming: even if we manage to limit the rise in temperatures to today’s levels, unfortunately, the effort would not be enough to restore the conditions of the glaciers to before the melting. But can we give up on improving the situation? Of course not.
The 2015-2018 period also sets a negative record in Arctic Sea ice extent. Antarctic ice is also shrinking; 2017 and 2018 saw the lowest Antarctic ice extents during a winter season since data have existed.
Annual ice loss from the Antarctic has increased dramatically over the past 8 years and is virtually six times as intense. Greenland’s ice cover has also experienced accelerated melting in the past 19 years since the turn of the millennium.
And then there are the continental glaciers: according to the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS), the loss of ice masses accelerated in 2015-2018 at a rate not seen in previous decades.
Why are glaciers melting? What are the causes?
As we said, the melting of glaciers is due to the progressive increase in temperatures caused by climate change; we know well how this change is a direct consequence of human activities and wild industrialization, in particular:
• EMISSIONS of CO2 and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere are one of the main pain points, due to human industrial activities.
• The use of fossil fuels generates sulfuric, carbonic and nitric acids, which fall on Earth as acid rain, negatively affecting the environment.
• Intensive deforestation: the felling of trees, for commercial reasons or to obtain new land for agriculture and urban expansion, reduces the oxygen present in the atmosphere and the absorption of carbon dioxide present in the air.
Consequences of melting glaciers
The main consequence of melting ice is the rise in sea level, which has grown in the last hundred years by 10-20 cm.
According to the report, between May 2014 and May 2019, the rate of increase in global average sea level was 5 mm per year: in the period 2007-2016 it had been 4 mm per year. There is thus an acceleration. Sea level is growing faster and faster.
Since 1993, the average rate of increase had been 3.2 mm/year. Increasingly important contributors to this increase are the melting of continental glaciers and the ice covers at the poles.