Swiss glacier retreats at a rapid clip
The Aletsch glacier is expected to shrink 80 percent by 2100, according to scientists.
from the July 17, 2007 edition
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Yet the implication of glacier and ice cap melts are being seized, dramatically, by federal Europe. On the eve of a European Commission Green Paper released June 26 ("Adapting to Climate Change in Europe – Options for EU Action") EC President José Manuel Barroso visited the Greenland glacier of Sermeq Kujalleq in Ilulissat.
"Greenland is of major significance to the rest of the world in our struggle to halt climate change," Mr. Barroso told reporters afterward. "The ice is melting faster than anybody predicted…. 50 kilometers of ice [a year]… three times more than the Alps." Scientists argue that ocean levels could rise seven meters should Greenland's ice melt entirely.
The commission's report argues for dramatic prevention measures to combat the effects of a temperature rise. Within 40 years the effects of climate change could mean a need to "increase the height of dikes, [relocate] ports, industry, and entire cities and villages from low-lying coastal areas…."
Barroso says that the EC will push, at a UN climate summit in Bali this December, for a new treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which ends in 2012.
Melting times
• Glaciers in the Alps have lost more than 20 percent of their area since the mid-19th century.
• While the thickness changes have fluctuated, losses of more than 1 meter of thickness have occurred in the past 15 to 20 years.
• Glaciers of less than100 meters are likely to disappear completely within the next 50 to 100 years, at this rate of change.
Source: UNEP1 | Page 2
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