Call Comes
as UNEP and WGMS Release New Facts and Figures
Report on Glaciers and Ice Caps
Geneva/Zurich/Nairobi,
1 September 2008 Monitoring of glaciers
and ice caps in Central Asia, the Tropics
and in the Polar Regions needs to be urgently
stepped up, scientists and the United Nations
said today.
There is mounting evidence
that climate change is triggering a shrinking
and thinning of many glaciers world-wide
which may eventually put at risk water supplies
for hundreds of millions of people.
But experts are warning
that data gaps exist in some vulnerable
parts of the globe undermining the ability
to provide precise early warning for countries
and populations at risk.
Peter Gilruth, Director
of the Division of Early Warning and Assessment
(DEWA) of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP)
and Wilfried Haeberli, Director of the World
Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) today
urged the international community to act.
"Excellent data
stretching back through much of the 20th
century exist for large parts of the world
including Europe and North America. But
the same cannot be said for some strategically
important regions of the Tropics, Central
Asia and the Polar Regions," they said.
"Given the urgency
of climate change and the need for scientifically-based
adaptation strategies, it is now essential
to re-initiate interrupted long-term series
in strategically important regions. It is
equally urgent to strengthen the monitoring
network in those regions which at the moment
have sparse coverage and to include the
latest technologies such as high-resolution
remote sensing to compliment the traditional
field observations," said Mr Gilruth
and Professor Haeberli.
The call was made during
the 20th anniversary celebrations of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC)the scientific body established by
UNEP and the World Meteorological Organisation
to advise governments on global warming.
Here UNEP and the WGMS
released the report Global Glacier Changes:
Facts and Figures. The report presents the
latest fluctuations of glaciers and ice
caps and underlines the overall trend of
glaciers' retreat.
Indeed the report confirms
that the average annual melting rate of
glaciers appears to have doubled after the
turn of the millennium, with record losses
posted in 2006 for a key network of reference
sites.
If the trend continues
and governments fail to agree on deep and
decisive emission reductions at the crucial
UN climate convention meeting in Copenhagen
in 2009, it is possible that glaciers may
completely disappear from many mountain
ranges in the 21st century.
Background
Glaciers are recognised
as impressive elements of the landscape
however, in particular they are a critical
component of the earth' system and the current
accelerated melting and retreat of glaciers
have severe impacts on the environment and
human well-being, including vegetation patterns,
economic livelihoods, natural hazards, and
the water and energy supply.
By looking at glaciers
or what is left of them, future generations
will be able to discern clearly which climate
scenario is being played out at the present
time. The consequences of ice disappearance
for landscape characteristics in high mountain
areas will be felt at local to regional
scales, while the changes in the water cycle
will also affect continental-scale water
supply and global-scale sea levels.
Glacier monitoring -
The internationally coordinated collection
of information about glaciers began in 1894
and the efforts towards the compilation
of a world glacier inventory have resulted
in unprecedented data sets. For the second
half of the 20th century, preliminary estimates
of the global distribution of glaciers and
ice caps covering some 685 000 km2 are available,
including detailed information on about
100 000 glaciers, and digital outlines for
about 62 000 glaciers.
The database on glacier
fluctuations includes 36 240 length change
observations from 1803 glaciers as far back
as the late 19th century, as well as about
3 400 annual mass balance measurements from
226 glaciers covering the past six decades.
In 2006, a new record
annual mass loss was measured on the reference
glaciers under long-term observation. The
average annual melting rate of mountain
glaciers appears to have doubled after the
turn of the millennium, in comparison with
the already accelerated melting rates observed
in the two decades before.
The previous record
loss in the year 1998 has already been exceeded
three times, i.e., in the years 2003, 2004
and 2006, with the losses in 2004 and 2006
being almost twice as high as the previous
1998 record loss.
Early measurements indicate
strong ice losses as early as the 1940s
and 1950s, followed by a moderate ice loss
between 1966 and 1985, and accelerating
ice losses until present.
The global average annual
mass loss of more than half a metre during
the decade of 1996 to 2005 represents twice
the ice loss of the previous decade (198695)
and over four times the rate of the decade
from 1976 to 1985. Prominent periods of
regional mass gains are found in the Alps
in the late 1970s and early 1980s and in
coastal Scandinavia and New Zealand in the
11000s.
Glaciers and climate
- The overall shrinking of glaciers and
ice caps since their maximum extents during
the Little Ice Age is well correlated with
the increase in global mean air temperature
of about 0.75 °C since the mid 19th
century, which is most likely human-induced
for the most part, at least since the second
half of the 20th century (IPCC 2007). On
a scale of decades, glaciers in various
regions have shown intermittent re-advances,
possibly in response to precipitation changes
(IPCC 2007).
Under current IPCC climate
scenarios, the ongoing trend of worldwide
and rapid, if not accelerating, glacier
shrinkage on the century time scale is most
likely to be of a non-periodic nature, and
may lead to the de-glaciation of large parts
of many mountain ranges this century.
New efforts needed -
The rapid environmental changes highlighted
in the new report released today require
that the international glacier monitoring
efforts make use of the swiftly developing
new technologies, such as remote sensing
and geo-informatics, and relate them to
the more traditional field observations,
in order to better face the monitoring challenges
of the 21st century.
Notes to Editors
The full report including
pictures and other resources can be found
at http://www.grid.unep.org/glaciers
The publication was
prepared in a joint project of the United
Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and
the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS).
It was reviewed by scientists from around
the world with expertise in the research
and monitoring of glaciers and ice caps.
World Glacier Monitoring
Service (WGMS): http://www.wgms.ch
WGMS compiles, analyses,
and publishes standardised information on
the distribution and ongoing changes in
the world's glaciers and ice caps. WGMS
works under the auspices of ICSU (FAGS),
IUGG (IACS), UNEP, UNESCO, and WMO and maintains
a collaborative network of local investigators
and national correspondents in all countries
involved in glacier monitoring.
The latest WGMS figures
can be accessed at: http://www.wgms.ch/mbb/mbb9/sum06.html
and http://www.wgms.ch/dataexp.html
United Nations Environment
Programme: http://www.unep.org and UNEP/DEWA/GRID-Europe:
http://www.grid.unep.ch/
GRID-Europe is one of
UNEP's major centres for data and information
management, with a unique, "value-adding"
mandate in the handling of global and regional
environmental data, which in turn support
the environment assessment and early warning
activities of UNEP and its partners.
The potential impacts
of climate change on glaciers were outlined
in the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(UNEP and the World Meteorological Organisation)
published in 2007.
For More Information Please Contact
Wilfried Haeberli, Director
Michael Zemp and Isabelle Roer, Research
Associates
Nick Nuttall, UNEP Spokesperson and Head
of Media
