GLACIERS MELTING AT ALARMING RATE
An Overview
Glaciers are shrinking at record rates and many would disappear within decades, the UN Environment Programme said on Sunday. Scientists measuring the health of 30 glaciers around the world found that ice loss reached record levels in 2006.The agency said millions of people depend on glaciers for drinking water, irrigation and power generation.
Facts and Figures:
The most severe loss in 2006 was recorded at Norway’s Breidalblikkbrea glacier,
which shrank 3.1 meters (10.2 feet), while Chile’s Echaurren Norte glacier was the only one to grow slightly thicker.On average, the glaciers shrank by 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) in
2006, the most recent year for which data are available.
The Zurich-based body conducted the study on which the findings are based. Haeberli said glaciers lost an average of 0.3 meters of ice a year between 1980 and 1999. But, since the turn of the millennium the average loss has increased to about 0.5 meters.
India & N.America:
The UN Environment Program warned that further ice loss could have dramatic consequences particularly in India, whose rivers are fed by Himalayan glaciers. The
West coast of North America, which gets much of its water from glaciers in mountain ranges such as the Rockies and Sierra Nevada, would be affected.
