Earth could lose 40% of its glacial mass if it doesn’t ditch fossil fuels, projection warns | Climate News

More than 40 percent of the planet’s glacial mass could disappear if humanity continues to invest in fossil fuels, a grim new forecast warns.

The bleak scenario means more than two-thirds of glaciers will disappear by the end of the century, contributing to rising global sea levels.

Principal investigator David Rounce, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the Pittsburgh School of Engineering, led an international effort to produce the new projection.

Even in the best-case scenario, Professor Lance’s team found that by 2100, nearly 50 percent of the glacier would have disappeared, accounting for more than 25 percent of the glacier’s total mass.

A previous study warned that Earth Already doomed to 1.5C warming.

While most of the lost glaciers are small by global standards, according to Professor Lance’s predictions, less than a square kilometer, so much loss adds up.

The catastrophic loss of glaciers is already being felt globally.

last year, Glaciers in Switzerland found to have shrunk in half in less than a century – The oldest glacier in the country had to be covered with a special white blanket to keep it from melting.

The thaw was so intense that the Sky News team was able to witness the wreckage of a plane dating back to 1968, It reappeared without warning in the Swiss Alps as the ice that hid it began to melt.

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Melting Swiss glacier reveals wreckage of old plane

Melting glaciers also contributed to last summer’s disastrous floods in Pakistanwhere there are more glaciers than anywhere except the Arctic and Antarctic.

Pakistan, in the northern Himalayas, is home to some 7,000 glaciers, and rising temperatures — nearly 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) in the city of Nawab Shah in 2022 — are causing them to melt and form glacial lakes.

Scientists have also warned of the melting of the so-called “doomsday glacier” in Antarctica, which could raise sea levels by 60 centimeters if it collapses completely.

The impact will be so profound that It could even have ‘severe consequences’ for the UK.

But Professor Rounce warned that even if global emissions were to stop completely, it would not be reflected in the rate at which glaciers were disappearing – which could take up to 100 years.

He described glaciers as “extremely slow-flowing rivers” whose effects take time to be felt.

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Major glaciers will disappear by 2050

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