Latest news with #MichaelZemp
Yahoo
07-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Researchers identify powerful new factor threatening coastlines worldwide: 'Now second largest contributor'
A new study reveals how much vanishing glaciers contribute to the rise of the world's sea level, as nearly 300 billion tons of ice are lost annually. Data from the Glacier Mass Balance Intercomparison Exercise, an international scientific community initiative, played a big part in an analysis published in Nature magazine that outlined the global glacier mass changes the planet experienced from 2000 to 2023. The study revealed that vanishing glaciers are "now the second largest contributor to sea level rise," per a report in Laboratory News. According to the World Glacier Monitoring Service, more than 9,000 billion tons of glacier ice have been lost since 1975, not including the ice melt from Greenland and Antarctica's continental sheets. This loss is equivalent to a colossal ice slab the size of Germany, standing more than 80 feet tall. The 2024 hydrological year continued the concerning trend, marking the third consecutive year of net mass loss across all 19 glacier regions. "Since 2000, glaciers have lost between 2% and 39% of their ice regionally and about 5% globally," according to the study. "Glacier mass loss is about 18% larger than the loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet and more than twice that from the Antarctic Ice Sheet." During the 24-year period ending in 2023, glacier melt meant just over a 0.7-inch rise in global sea level. The World Glacier Monitoring Service director, Professor Michael Zemp, speaking to the World Meteorological Organization, acknowledged that at first glance, that might not sound impressive, "but it has a big impact: every millimeter sea-level rise exposes an additional 200,000 to 300,000 people to annual flooding." The first-ever World Day for Glaciers was held on March 21 to raise awareness about the global impacts of accelerating glacier melt. Over the past six years, five have witnessed the most rapid glacier loss ever recorded. The World Meteorological Organization warns that glaciers in many regions of the world will not survive this century. Vanishing glaciers threaten water supplies for hundreds of millions of people on our planet. Researchers from Boston College found that glacier melting was happening at an even faster pace than previously thought. They warned that as melting increases, it will drive even faster melting in the future. Scientists are actively mapping our planet's glaciers because they play a key role in cooling our planet by reflecting solar radiation that the land on Earth would otherwise absorb. Shifting away from our reliance on dirty energy sources and moving toward renewable options is vital for curbing the amount of heat-trapping gases being released into Earth's atmosphere. Do you think America could ever go zero-waste? Never Not anytime soon Maybe in some states Definitely Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. There are things we can do to help when it comes time to consider making upgrades to our homes. Making choices like buying an induction stove rather than a conventional range, a heat pump instead of a conventional HVAC system, and an EV versus a gas-powered vehicle can have an impact. Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
Shafaq News
21-03-2025
- Science
- Shafaq News
UN warns: "Unprecedented" glacier loss due to climate change
Shafaq News/ Global glacier melt has reached record levels, with the past three years marking the largest ice mass loss ever recorded, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said on Friday. Michael Zemp, head of the World Glacier Monitoring Service, also said at a press conference in Geneva that glaciers have lost 9,000 gigatons of ice since 1975 — roughly equivalent to a "huge ice block of the size of Germany with a thickness of 25 meters." Five of the past six years saw record losses, including 450 gigatons of ice in 2024 alone, Zemp said. The melting is expected to accelerate further across regions including the Arctic, the Alps, South America and the Tibetan Plateau, as global temperatures rise due to climate change. Glacier retreat is already contributing to rising sea levels, increasing the risk of flooding for millions and threatening freshwater systems that support agriculture and hydropower for billions. Glaciers, along with ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, account for around 70% of the world's freshwater reserves. The findings were released ahead of a UNESCO summit in Paris marking the first International Day of Glaciers, where officials are expected to call for coordinated international action to preserve remaining glacier systems. 🗻 Join us for the first-ever #WorldGlaciersDay and commemoration of #WorldWaterDay!Glaciers are the guardians of the Earth's future. Learn how we can protect these frozen giants ⬇️📅 21 March 2025⏰ 10am EDT📺 🔗 — UN DESA (@UNDESA) March 20, 2025
Asharq Al-Awsat
21-03-2025
- Science
- Asharq Al-Awsat
World's Glaciers are Losing Record Ice as Global Temperatures Climb, UN Says
Glaciers around the globe are disappearing faster than ever, with the last three-year period seeing the largest glacial mass loss on record, according to a UNESCO report released on Friday. The 9,000 gigatons of ice lost from glaciers since 1975 are roughly equivalent to "an ice block the size of Germany with the thickness of 25 meters," Michael Zemp, director of the Switzerland-based World Glacier Monitoring Service, said during a press conference announcing the report at the UN headquarters in Geneva. The dramatic ice loss, from the Arctic to the Alps, from South America to the Tibetan Plateau, is expected to accelerate as climate change, caused by the burning of fossil fuels, pushes global temperatures higher. This would likely exacerbate economic, environmental and social problems across the world as sea levels rise and these key water sources dwindle. The report coincides with a UNESCO summit in Paris marking the first World Day for Glaciers, urging global action to protect glaciers around the world, Reuters said. Zemp said that five of the last six years registered the largest losses, with glaciers losing 450 gigatons of mass in 2024 alone. The accelerated loss has made mountain glaciers one of the largest contributors to sea level rise, putting millions at risk of devastating floods and damaging water routes that billions of people depend on for hydroelectric energy and agriculture. Stefan Uhlenbrook, the director of water and cryosphere at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), said that about 275,000 glaciers remain globally which, along with the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, comprise about 70% of the world's freshwater. "We need to advance our scientific knowledge, we need to advance through better observing systems, through better forecasts and better early warning systems for the planet and the people," Uhlenbrook said. DANGERS AND DEITIES About 1.1 billion people live in mountain communities, which suffer the most immediate impacts of glacier loss, due to the increasing risks with natural hazards and unreliable water sources. The remote locations and difficult terrains also make cheap fixes difficult to come by. Rising temperatures are expected to worsen droughts in areas that rely on snowpack for freshwater, while increasing both the severity and frequency of hazards like avalanches, landslides, flash floods and glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs). One Peruvian farmer living downstream of a retreating glacier has taken the issue to court, suing German energy giant RWE for a portion of the glacial lake's flood defenses proportionate to its historic global emissions. "The changes we see in the field are literally heartbreaking," glaciologist Heidi Sevestre, secretariat at the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program, told Reuters outside the UNESCO headquarters in Paris on Wednesday. "Things in certain regions are happening actually much faster than we anticipated," Sevestre added, noting a recent trip to the Rwenzori Mountains, located in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in East Africa, where glaciers are now expected to disappear by 2030. Sevestre has worked with the region's indigenous Bakonzo communities who believe a deity called Kitasamba lives in the glaciers. "Can you imagine the deep spiritual connection, this strong attachment they have towards the glaciers and what it might mean for them that their glaciers are disappearing?" Sevestre said. Glacial melt in East Africa has led to increased local conflicts over water, according to the new UNESCO report, and while the impact on a global scale is minimal, the trickle of melting glaciers around the world is having a compounding impact. Between 2000 and 2023, melting mountain glaciers have caused 18 millimeters of global sea level rise, about 1 mm per year. Every millimeter can expose up to 300,000 people to annual flooding, according to the World Glacier Monitoring Service. "Billions of people are connected to glaciers, whether they know it or not, and that will require billions of people to protect them," Sevestre said.
Euronews
21-03-2025
- Science
- Euronews
World Glacier Day: UN warns of ‘avalanche of cascading impacts' as ice melt increases
ADVERTISEMENT Today marks the first ever World Glaciers Day, an occasion which the UN is using to spotlight these icy landscapes which are fast disappearing. Glaciers are now 9,000 billion tonnes lighter than when records began in 1975, according to the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS). 'This is equivalent to a huge ice block the size of Germany with a thickness of 25 metres,' says the service's director, Prof. Dr. Michael Zemp. As the planet warms up, glacier loss is accelerating. The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO)'s new State of the Global Climate report revealed that from 2022-2024, glaciers underwent their greatest three-year loss on record. Related Greenpeace ordered to pay more than €600 million to oil company over US pipeline protests Glaciers are losing more water each year than the world will consume in three decades, study warns 'Seven of the ten most negative mass balance years have occurred since 2016,' says WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo, referring to the difference between the amount of ice glaciers gain through snowfall and the amount they lose through seasonal melting. This is triggering an 'avalanche of cascading impacts', the UN agency warns, from flooding to water scarcity and sea-level rise. 'Preservation of glaciers is not just an environmental, economic and societal necessity,' says Saulo, 'It's a matter of survival.' What does the depletion of 'the world's water towers' mean for people? There are more than 275,000 glaciers worldwide, covering approximately 700,000 square kilometres of ground. Alongside ice sheets , they store a whopping 70 per cent of global freshwater resources. As the WMO puts it, high mountain regions are the world's water towers. The depletion of glaciers threatens the supplies of hundreds of millions of people who live downstream and depend on the steady release of water stored over winter during the hottest and driest parts of the year. In the short term, glacier melt increases natural hazards like floods . In the longer term, glaciers are the second-largest contributor to global sea-level rise, after the warming of the ocean. They contributed 18 mm to global sea-level rise between the years 2000-2023, according to one recent study by a global consortium of hundreds of researchers called the Glacier Mass Balance Intercomparison Exercise (GlaMBIE). "This might not sound much, but it has a big impact: every millimetre sea-level rise exposes an additional 200,000 to 300,000 people to annual flooding,' says Zemp. GlaMBIE found that between 2000 and 2023, glaciers lost on average 5 per cent of their remaining ice. But regionally, this loss ranged from 2 per cent in the Antarctic and Subantarctic Islands to almost 40 per cent in Central Europe. Related Slovenia, Sweden, Malta: Which European citizens are most and least prepared for climate disasters? 'It made me cry': Swiss glacier photos taken 15 years apart reveal staggering loss Where are glaciers most at risk? WMO and WGMS warn that many glaciers in Western Canada and the US, Scandinavia, Central Europe, the Caucasus, New Zealand, and the Tropics are at risk of melting entirely. The 2024 hydrological year marked the third year in a row in which all 19 glacier regions experienced a net loss of mass, WMO observes. Glaciers in Scandinavia, Svalbard, and North Asia experienced their largest annual mass loss on record. South Cascade Glacier, pictured October 2020, has the longest mass-balance record within the USGS Benchmark Glacier monitoring programme. U.S. Geological Survey. Inaugurated in the International Year of Glaciers' Preservation, the first World Glacier Day (21 March) seeks to increase awareness of the vital role that glaciers, snow, and ice play in the climate system and hydrological cycle. ADVERTISEMENT One glacier is especially in the limelight today. South Cascade Glacier in the Cascade Range of Washington, US, has been chosen as the first 'Glacier of the Year' - an accolade which celebrates the majesty of these icy landscapes and the dedication of glaciologists who watch over them. 'South Cascade Glacier exemplifies both the beauty of glaciers and the long-term commitment of dedicated scientists and volunteers who have collected direct field data to quantify glacier mass change for more than six decades', says Caitlyn Florentine, co-investigator of the glacier from the US Geological Survey. It has been continuously monitored since 1952 and provides one of the longest uninterrupted records of glaciological mass balance in the Western Hemisphere.
Japan Times
21-03-2025
- Science
- Japan Times
World's glaciers are losing record ice as global temperatures climb, U.N. says
Glaciers around the globe are disappearing faster than ever, with the last three-year period seeing the largest glacial mass loss on record, according to a UNESCO report released on Friday. The 9,000 gigatons of ice lost from glaciers since 1975 are roughly equivalent to "an ice block the size of Germany with the thickness of 25 meters," Michael Zemp, director of the Switzerland-based World Glacier Monitoring Service, said during a news conference announcing the report at the U.N. headquarters in Geneva. The dramatic ice loss, from the Arctic to the Alps, from South America to the Tibetan Plateau, is expected to accelerate as climate change, caused by the burning of fossil fuels, pushes global temperatures higher. This would likely exacerbate economic, environmental and social problems across the world as sea levels rise and these key water sources dwindle. The report coincides with a UNESCO summit in Paris marking the first World Day for Glaciers, urging global action to protect glaciers around the world. Zemp said that five of the last six years registered the largest losses, with glaciers losing 450 gigatons of mass in 2024 alone. The accelerated loss has made mountain glaciers one of the largest contributors to sea level rise, putting millions at risk of devastating floods and damaging water routes that billions of people depend on for hydroelectric energy and agriculture. Stefan Uhlenbrook, the director of water and cryosphere at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), said that about 275,000 glaciers remain globally which, along with the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, comprise about 70% of the world's freshwater. "We need to advance our scientific knowledge, we need to advance through better observing systems, through better forecasts and better early warning systems for the planet and the people," Uhlenbrook said. About 1.1 billion people live in mountain communities, which suffer the most immediate impacts of glacier loss, due to the increasing risks with natural hazards and unreliable water sources. The remote locations and difficult terrains also make cheap fixes difficult to come by. Rising temperatures are expected to worsen droughts in areas that rely on snowpack for freshwater, while increasing both the severity and frequency of hazards like avalanches, landslides, flash floods and glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs). One Peruvian farmer living downstream of a retreating glacier has taken the issue to court, suing German energy giant RWE for a portion of the glacial lake's flood defenses proportionate to its historic global emissions. "The changes we see in the field are literally heartbreaking," glaciologist Heidi Sevestre, secretariat at the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program, said outside the UNESCO headquarters in Paris on Wednesday. "Things in certain regions are happening actually much faster than we anticipated," Sevestre added, noting a recent trip to the Rwenzori Mountains, located in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in East Africa, where glaciers are now expected to disappear by 2030. Sevestre has worked with the region's indigenous Bakonzo communities who believe a deity called Kitasamba lives in the glaciers. "Can you imagine the deep spiritual connection, this strong attachment they have towards the glaciers and what it might mean for them that their glaciers are disappearing?" Sevestre said. Glacial melt in East Africa has led to increased local conflicts over water, according to the new UNESCO report, and while the impact on a global scale is minimal, the trickle of melting glaciers around the world is having a compounding impact. Between 2000 and 2023, melting mountain glaciers have caused 18 millimeters of global sea level rise, about 1 mm per year. Every millimeter can expose up to 300,000 people to annual flooding, according to the World Glacier Monitoring Service. "Billions of people are connected to glaciers, whether they know it or not, and that will require billions of people to protect them," Sevestre said.
