In the last 60 years, experts have been sounding the alarms that the world is undergoing a change that could be deadly to the environment and to humanity. The melting of the mountains of glaciers in the Arctic circle has paved the way for the rise in the levels of the ocean water. This means that its contribution to the global level is as massive as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet and far more significant than the considered effects of Antarctica.
When the glaciers melt, the water flows into the rivers and eventually into the world oceans. So even if they are found in the high areas of the world, they can still be seen as the biggest contributor to the dangerous increase in the ocean level. Perhaps what can be considered as the biggest contributor is the warming of the ocean waters themselves. The high temperature in the ocean causes it to expand.
"The glaciers, at the moment, are considered as one of the key players in the rise of the ocean water levels and it may be like this for the rest of the century," said Michael Zemp, a glaciologist at the University of Zurich and lead author of the study. "Because these mountains can be very sensitive, even more than the ice sheets, they can cause real trouble."
The melting of the ice in these mountain glaciers may cause huge problems for the regions around it. They may lose the ice covering that they have had for years. If the melting of these ice glaciers won't slow down or stop, the study suggests that all the glaciers in places like the United States, Canada and Central Europe to all disappear.
The melting of these glaciers brings about two major problems. One, the melting will cause the ocean levels to rise even more which could lead to the flooding of low lying places. This could displace a lot of communities and may even make living conditions difficult for some people. On the other hand, the local water supplies may also be lost in the process. The melting of the ice during summer often becomes a good source of fresh water for communities nearby.
"These glaciers actually feed more people in various communities," said Alex Gardner, a NASA glacier expert in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "Right now, the melting of the glaciers are contributing to all the extra flow of water that the community is enjoying. However, in the next 50 to 100 years, the flow is going to slow down and it is going to be significant in the lives of the people in the community."
The new findings that were published in the journal Nature, a group of researchers were able to construct a time series measuring the melting of the glaciers in the region by combining various results of observations from different studies.
"More than the harsh effects of its melting, one concern is that the disappearance of these glaciers will prove to be haunting to the rest of the world who knew where they once were," Gardner said.
