Antarctic glaciers in retreat from climate change

Posted on April, 23 2005

REUTERS - Most of the glaciers on the Antarctic peninsular are in headlong retreat because of climate change, a leading scientist said on Thursday.
Source: Reuters
By Jeremy Lovell

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 percent 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 breakup 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.
 
"This is just one piece of the million piece jigsaw of how climate change is affecting the planet," he said.
 
He said the study, which is published in the journal Science, was unique as there was no series of aerial pictures dating back that far for the rest of Antarctica.
 
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.
 
Ted Scambos from the University of Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Centre said the study's results were a warning to the world.
 
"It is a great bit of insight. The Antarctic peninsular is in a state of transition due to warming and what is happening there is going to be a good indication of what will happen as the larger ice sheets -- Greenland and Antarctica proper -- begin to warm," he said.