About 90% of Glacier Will Disappear By 2100 Regardless of the Cut on Greenhouse Gas Emissions

A recent study by a team of researcher offers the most detailed and up-to-date estimates of the future of all the glaciers in the Alps, which is around 4000. The research projects that substantial changes will occur in the coming decades that is from 2017 to 2050, more than 50 percent of glacier volume will be lost, basically independently of the degree of cut-down on the greenhouse gas emissions.

The leader of the research and also a researcher at ETH Zurich and the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, now at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, Harry Zekollari said that beyond 2050, the glaciers' future evolution would depend on how the climate will evolve.

Zekollari further said that in the event of more limited warming, it might be possible to save a far more substantial part of the glaciers.

There will be an enormous impact on the Alps when the glacier retreats because glaciers are an essential component of the region's landscape, ecosystem, and economy. Not only do they attract tourists to the mountain ranges, but they also act as natural freshwater reservoirs.

Glaciers also provide a source of water for flora and fauna, as well as for hydroelectricity and agriculture, which is particularly crucial in dry and warm periods.

While examining the manner with which Alpine glaciers would manage in a warming world, Zekollari and his colleagues utilized new computer model that combines melt processes and ice flow, and observation data to study the way each of these ice bodies would change in the future for different emission scenarios.

Exploiting the scenario to imply limited warming called RCP2.6, the greenhouse gas emission could peak in the next few years and then decline rapidly, maintaining the degree of extra warming at the end of the century between 2⁰C since pre-industrial levels. In this scenario, there will be a reduction of Alpine glaciers to about 37 cubic kilometers by 2100, just over one-third of their present-day volume.

With the scenario of high-emissions corresponding to RCP8.5, there will be a rapid rise in emissions over the next few decades.

A researcher at ETH Zurich and co-author of The Cryosphere study, Matthias Huss said that by 2100, the Alp would be mostly ice-free with patches of isolated ice remaining at high elevation to represent 5 percent or less ice volume of the present day.

Daniel Farinotti, ETH Zurich senior co-author also said that some of the clearest indicators of the ongoing change in climate are the European Alps glaciers and their recent evolution. Farinotti further noted that the future of these glaciers is in danger and there is still a probability of limiting their future losses.