Critical Times

A United Nations report claims the Earth’s ice is melting at an accelerated rate, potentially affecting several million people.

The report was released in time for today’s World Environment Day events.

“The futures of hundreds of millions of people across the world will be affected by declines in snow cover, sea ice, glaciers, permafrost and lake ice,” the Global Outlook for Ice and Snow report says.

‘Significant changes could cause hazards’: Report

“Impacts are likely to include significant changes in the availability of water supplies for drinking and agriculture, rising sea levels affecting low lying coasts and islands and an increase in hazards such as subsidence of currently frozen land,” it says.

The Arctic ice sheet has shrunk by six to seven percent in winter and by 10 to 12 percent in summer over the past 30 years, the report says.

The snow-covered regions of the northern hemisphere have reduced by between seven and 10 percent during March and April during the same period, according to the report presented by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

The melting of the ice and snow is not only a consequence of global warming, it is also an accelerating factor, researchers presenting the report in the Norwegian Arctic town of Tromsoe says.

“Snow and ice reflect 70 to 80 percent of the sun’s energy, whereas water absorbs it. If snow and ice continue to melt, this will amplify global warming,” report author Paal Prestrud told journalists.

“This means that the adaptation process of coping with climate change is potentially so far-reaching in terms of economic costs and consequences that we have to act now,” UNEP executive director Achim Steiner adds.

For instance, an estimated 40 percent of the world’s population could be affected by the loss of snow and glaciers on the mountains of Asia, according to researchers.

The report also feared that melting ice and snow could trigger more abrupt climatic changes, such as hurricanes and floods, with wider-ranging impacts on people, economies and wildlife.

Melting ice and snow were considered more likely to increase hazards such as avalanches and floods from the build-up of potentially unstable glacial lakes.

Rising temperatures and the thawing of permafrost, or frozen land, were also triggering the expansion of existing lakes and the emergence of new lakes and rivers in places like Siberia.

“If the permafrost thaws, it will (further) amplify global warming and will change current sea levels,” Mr Prestrud said.

“Existing indigenous species would disappear because they can’t leave the region. New species would come in, migrating from the south,” he adds.

The polar bear is, for example, expected to become extinct if the ice melts completely.

SOURCE: AFP