LONDON: Most of the glaciers on the Antarctic peninsular are in headlong retreat because of climate change, a leading scientist said on Thursday. An in-depth study using aerial photographs spanning the past half century of all 244 marine glaciers on the west side of the finger-like peninsular pointing up to South America found that 87 per cent of them were in retreat — and the speed was rising.
“Regional warming is the strongest single factor in this retreat, and there is growing evidence that this is due to global warming,” scientist David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) told a news conference.
“The peninsular could end up looking like the Alps if the glaciers retreat far enough from the sea,” he said.
Fellow BAS researcher Alison Cook, who spent three years studying thousands of old aerial photographs, said they clearly showed a general glacial retreat which had accelerated sharply in the past five years.
Scientists have noted before the shrinkage and break-up of some of Antarctica’s giant sea ice shelves, but the new study is the first comprehensive look over a long period at the state of the glaciers that flow into the sea.
RISING SEA LEVELS: Scientists have predicted that global temperatures could rise by up to two degrees centigrade this century, pushing the planet into the unknown with rising sea levels and an increase in extreme weather events threatening millions of lives.
Most of them agree that human activities that produce greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide contribute to this global warming — although there is deep disagreement over the degree. Carbon dioxide is emitted by burning fossil fuels in cars, power plants and factories.
Vaughan said the average temperature over the peninsular had risen two degrees in the past 50 years — far more than the rest of the giant continent — but said the reasons were unclear and refused to speculate on how much mankind was to blame.
The 212 glaciers that had been in retreat since the early 1950s had shrunk by an average of 600 metres (656 yards) — although one, the Widdowson Glacier, had been measured galloping backwards at an alarming 1.1 km (1.76 miles) a year.—Reuters
