Most of the world's mountain glaciers and small ice caps will either disappear or shrivel dramatically by the end of the century, collectively contributing as much as 4.7 inches to a rise in absolute sea level, according to a new study published over the weekend in the journal Nature Geoscience.
The research, conducted by University of Alaska Fairbanks geophysicist Regine Hock and University of British Columbia glaciologist Valentina Radic, was the most comprehensive investigation ever done into the fate of mountain glaciers, according to summary published in Nature News.
About 99 percent of the world's total cryosphere remains within the colossal ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica. Small glaciers and regional ice caps, including the tongues of ice that rim Prince William Sound and southern Alaska mountains, comprise a tiny sliver of the cryosphere, locking up only about 1 percent of the water bound inside the Earth's ice, the authors said. Even so, small-glacier meltdown will be an important factor in sea level rise even if the big ice sheets begin to disintegrate.
Using Alaska's supercomputer in Fairbanks, Radic and Hock analyzed what would happen to 2,638 ice caps and 120,229 mountain glaciers under 10 different "state-of-the-art climate models" as the century unfolds, and then applied the results to 19 different regions around the globe.
"They found the smallest losses in glacier volume in Greenland and high-mountain Asia, and the largest losses in the European Alps and New Zealand," according to a summary posted by Nature.
The research was widely reported across the world over the weekend, with media outlets focusing on the fate of their local ice. The Hindistan Times of New Delhi reported "Himalayan glaciers to shrink," while the London Guardian claimed "Glacier shrinkage will hit European Alps hardest."
The Vancouver Sun in British Columbia explored the economic implications of North America losing half of its glaciers.
"In Western Canada and the United States, 50 percent of glacier ice could disappear by 2100, which could have substantial impacts on regional power dams and water supplies," the Sun reported. "'For the long term, it's not good for the economy because there will be a drop in river run-off and less water in reservoirs,' says glaciologist Valentina Radic."