03.11.2022, 11:00
Zitat:These glaciers are on track to disappear within the next 30 years, new report showshttps://edition.cnn.com/2022/11/02/us/gl...index.html
CNN - The climate crisis is touching nearly every region of the world. But perhaps one of the most visible indicators of its impact is its effect on Earth’s iconic glaciers, a major source of freshwater supply. Glaciers have been melting at a breakneck pace in recent decades, leading to around 20% of global sea level rise since 2000.
Now researchers at the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization have found that glaciers in one-third of the planet’s most beautiful parks and protected areas are set to disappear by 2050 – whether or not global warming is slowed. Among the glaciers on the brink of vanishing at World Heritage sites are those in two of the most visited and most beloved parks in the United States – Yellowstone National Park, which saw unprecedented flooding earlier this year, and Yosemite National Park.
The list also includes some of the largest and most iconic glaciers in Central Asia and Europe as well as the last remaining glaciers in Africa, namely Mount Kenya and Mount Kilimanjaro. [...] Only by limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels can we save glaciers at the other two-thirds of these parks, scientists report – a climate target that recent reports say the world is far from achieving. The global average temperature has already risen around 1.2 degrees since the industrial revolution.
Glaciers cover around 10% of land, providing fresh water supply for households, agriculture and industry downstream. Under normal conditions, they take as long as a millennium to fully form; each year, they gain mass through snow or rain, and lose mass by melting in the summer.
Schneemann