{"id":32605,"date":"2018-03-21T06:18:17","date_gmt":"2018-03-21T11:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=32605"},"modified":"2018-03-21T06:18:47","modified_gmt":"2018-03-21T11:18:47","slug":"global-warming-to-date-could-obliterate-a-third-of-glacier-ice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=32605","title":{"rendered":"Global warming to date could \u2018obliterate\u2019 a third of glacier ice"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Global warming to date could \u2018obliterate\u2019 a third of glacier ice<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The warming the world has already experienced could be enough to melt more than a third of the world\u2019s glaciers outside Antarctica and Greenland \u2013 regardless of current efforts to reduce emissions.<\/p>\n

That is the stark conclusion of a new study, which analyses the lag between global temperature rise and the retreat of glaciers.<\/p>\n

The relatively slow response of glaciers to global warming means it will take to the end of the century \u2013 and beyond \u2013 to see the benefits of mitigation efforts in the coming decades, the study says.<\/p>\n

The \u201cbaked in\u201d glacier loss from observed warming has largely been overlooked, another scientist tells Carbon Brief, meaning \u201cwe really are on course to obliterate many of these mountain landscapes\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ice cube<\/b><\/p>\n

Glaciers<\/a> are huge rivers of ice that ooze their way over land, powered by gravity and their own sheer weight. They accumulate ice from snowfall and lose it through melting.<\/p>\n

As global temperatures have risen, many of the world\u2019s glaciers have already started to shrink and retreat<\/a>. Continued warming could see many iconic landscapes \u2013 from the Canadian Rockies<\/a> to the\u00a0Mount Everest<\/a>\u00a0region of the Himalayas \u2013 lose almost all their glaciers by the end of the century.<\/p>\n

But glacier retreat does not happen overnight. So if global temperature rise stopped immediately, how much of the world\u2019s glacier ice could be saved? And for how much is its fate already sealed?<\/p>\n

This is what the new study, published in Nature Climate Change<\/a>, aims to work out.<\/p>\n

The study focuses on the lag between rising temperatures and how quickly glaciers adjust. An ice cube makes a suitable metaphor, as three of the authors \u2013 Prof Ben Marzeion<\/a>, Dr Georg Kaser<\/a> and Dr Fabien Maussion<\/a> \u2013 explain to Carbon Brief over email:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you take an ice cube from the fridge \u2013 i.e. from one climate \u2013 to the kitchen table \u2013 i.e. a new climate \u2013 it will, finally, but not instantaneously, melt. The time it takes to fully melt the cube depends on: a) the size of the cube; and b) the temperature in your kitchen.\u201d<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n

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Global warming to date could \u2018obliterate\u2019 a third of glacier ice The warming the world has already experienced could be enough to melt more than a third of the world\u2019s glaciers outside Antarctica and Greenland \u2013 regardless of current efforts to reduce emissions. That is the stark conclusion of a new study, which analyses the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[10797,141,4437,19365,369,17233],"class_list":["post-32605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-carbon-brief","tag-climate-change","tag-glacial-melt","tag-glaciers","tag-global-warming","tag-robert-mcsweeney"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32605"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32606,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32605\/revisions\/32606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}