Glaciers are considered one of the most precious natural features of our planet.
These slow-moving rivers of ice, thousands of years old, reflect the sun’s rays back into space and store valuable fresh water.
But a new study warns that more than half of the world’s glaciers could disappear by the end of this century due to climate change.
Scientists from ETH Zurich in Switzerland and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium have predicted glacier loss under different carbon emissions scenarios.
Their research included all the glaciers in the world – about 200,000 in total.
In a high emissions scenario, up to 54 percent of all glaciers could disappear, while in the Alps this figure could be closer to 75 percent.
On the other side of the Alps, high mountain glaciers offered year-round skiing for holidaymakers, but climate change is changing this.
It follows that Italy and Switzerland will have to redraw their border due to melting glaciers.
Glaciers around the world are shrinking at an alarming rate, the new study reveals. Pictured: Fieldwork on the Findelen Glacier in Switzerland
‘Glaciers are crucial in many parts of the world, and as such glacier changes have a direct impact on our society and the natural environment,’ lead study author Professor Harry Zekollari, a glaciologist at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, told MailOnline.
‘Locally, glaciers can cause natural disasters, they have an important tourist value and determine the local water supply.’
A major concern is the effect of melting glaciers on rising sea levels, which in turn increases the risk of flooding of towns and cities, especially those closer to the coast.
The loss of glaciers also depletes the freshwater sources that millions of people depend on for drinking water.
“The water supply from glaciers (and how this supply is changing) will impact biodiversity and water availability for industry, agriculture and households,” Professor Zekollari said.
But it also means that the Earth changes from bright white to a duller green, reducing the planet’s ‘albedo’, its ability to reflect sunlight.
Instead of the highly reflective white ice, the exposed plants and rocks have a lower albedo, meaning they absorb more of the sun’s energy instead of reflecting it.
This only increases the risk of the Earth warming up, exacerbating climate change – what scientists describe as a ‘runaway effect’.
A glacier is simply the accumulation of snow that has been compressed into solid ice over thousands of years. Pictured: Glaciologists at the Rhône Glacier covered by slabs near Goms, Switzerland, on June 16, 2023
A view shows the Iver Glacier near the El Plomo mountain peak, in the Andes Mountains, in the Santiago Metropolitan Region, Chile, April 4, 2024
Since the Industrial Revolution, emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases have increased global temperatures.
As a result, most of the world’s glaciers are rapidly melting and shrinking – or disappearing altogether – as the climate warms.
To predict future glacier loss, the researchers looked at historical glacier masses, carbon emissions and temperature data.
Using computer models, they were able to predict how the glaciers might continue to lose mass in response to climate change.
“By modeling glacier evolution over the 21st century under different climate scenarios, we found large differences in outcomes depending on future emission levels,” says Professor Zekollari.
In an optimistic scenario of low carbon emissions, glaciers will lose 25 to 29 percent of their mass by 2100, the team found.
However, in a high-emissions scenario, that figure rises to somewhere between 46 and 54 percent.
Depicted, projected glacier loss in different regions and under different emissions scenarios. The scenario with the highest emissions is plotted in dark red
The loss of glaciers will vary significantly by region, but those in the European Alps are among the most vulnerable, the study said.
The team’s projections suggest that glaciers in the European Alps will experience more than 75 percent volume loss under high-emissions scenarios.
Polar regions such as Arctic Canada, Iceland and Spitsbergen are expected to retain more of their glacier mass until the end of the century, but will also experience significant losses.
In their article, published in The cryospherethe team warns that there are still ‘uncertainties in the projected glacier evolution’.
“Despite some differences at the regional scale and a slightly more pronounced sensitivity to changing climatic conditions, our results are in good agreement with recent projections,” they say.
“Projecting the global evolution of glaciers is crucial to quantify future sea level rise and changes in glacier-fed rivers,” they say.
They also emphasize that the study specifically looked at glaciers, and not ice caps.
Ice sheets are masses of glacial ice that extend over more than 50,000 square kilometers.
The Greenland Ice Sheet (photo). Earth’s two ice sheets today cover most of Greenland and Antarctica
There are two ice sheets on Earth – the Greenland Ice Sheet and the Antarctic Ice Sheet – and together they contain about 99 percent of the Earth’s fresh water.
‘Although the ice sheets indeed contain much more mass, they respond on longer timescales,’ Professor Zekollari told MailOnline.
‘As a result, their contribution to sea level rise is about the same (or even slightly less) than that of the 200,000 glaciers.
‘The ice caps are therefore of great importance – especially in the longer term (after 2100) – but their modeling is done by other researchers.
‘For us it is indeed crucial that all figures from us and other researchers are combined to get the full picture of sea level rise.’