Latest Retreat of glaciers since Stories
Scientists were outraged on Tuesday over comments made by India's environment minister, in which he denied a link between climate change and the melting Himalayan glaciers.On Monday, India Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said he questioned the theories put forth by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and found no "conclusive scientific evidence" for a link between the melting Himalayan glaciers and global warming."None of our glaciers under monitoring are...
U.S. geoscientists say they've found evidence that northern hemisphere climate swings during the past 12,000 years are linked to changes in the tropics. University of New Hampshire and Columbia University scientists said their finding suggests a prolonged cold spell caused European and North American glaciers to creep forward several hundred years ago, possibly affecting climate patterns as far south as Peru and causing tropical glaciers to also expand. Glaciers in both the tropics and North...
A U.S. geologist says he has determined how a group of glaciers advanced in the Southeast Himalayas 9,000 years ago, despite hotter Central Asian summers. Brigham Young University scientist Summer Rupper said the glaciers advanced from 1 to 3 miles while most other Central Asian glaciers were retreating. Stronger monsoons were thought to be responsible, said Rupper, Our research indicates the extra snowfall from monsoonal effects can only take credit for up to 30 percent of the glacial...
 The U.S. Geological Survey has released the results of a long-term study of key glaciers in western North America, reporting this month that glacial shrinkage is rapid and accelerating and a result of climate change. University of Illinois geologist William Shilts spent nearly two decades studying glaciers on Bylot Island, an uninhabited island about 300 miles southwest of Thule, Greenland. He, his students and other geologists who followed in his footsteps have chronicled the decline of...
Ice, when heated, is supposed to melt.That's why a collection of glaciers in the Southeast Himalayas stymies those who know what they did 9,000 years ago. While most other Central Asian glaciers retreated under hotter summer temperatures, this group of glaciers advanced from one to six kilometers.A new study by BYU geologist Summer Rupper pieces together the chain of events surrounding the unexpected glacial growth."Stronger monsoons were thought to be responsible," said Rupper, who reports...
The shrinking of three U.S. glaciers raises concerns about rising sea levels and the future availability of fresh drinking water, scientists said. Climate change is shrinking the ice at an accelerated rate on the South Cascade Glacier in Washington state, the Wolverine Glacier on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula and the Gulkana Glacier in interior Alaska, The McClatchy Newspapers reported Friday. The three glaciers, known as benchmark glaciers, have shown a rapid and sustained retreat, U.S....
Swiss glaciers have lost a lot of ice in recent years due to increased melting. As temperatures climb, so do the fears that the glaciers could one day disappear altogether. Until now it could only be estimated approximately how big the ice volume in the Swiss Alps actually is and how it has changed in recent years. A team of scientists headed by Martin Funk, ETH-Professor at the Laboratory of Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology (VAW) at ETH Zurich, however, has now developed a novel...
Findings are relevant to modern Greenland ice sheet, says UB researcherModern glaciers, such as those making up the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, are capable of undergoing periods of rapid shrinkage or retreat, according to new findings by paleoclimatologists at the University at Buffalo.The paper, published on June 21 in Nature Geoscience, describes fieldwork demonstrating that a prehistoric glacier in the Canadian Arctic rapidly retreated in just a few hundred years.The proof of such...
U.S. scientists say that while the majority of the world's glaciers are retreating as the planet becomes warmer, glaciers south of the equator are growing. The researchers at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory said they discovered glaciers in South America and New Zealand are inching forward, pointing to strong regional variations in climate. Conventional wisdom holds that during the era of human civilization, climate has been relatively stable. The scientists said their...
According to a paper in this week's issue of the journal Science, the vast majority of the world's glaciers are retreating as the planet gets warmer. For the last 7,000 years, New Zealand's largest glaciers have moved out of step with glaciers in the Northern Hemisphere, showing strong regional variations in climate, the paper reported. "This research should provide much more accurate reconstructions of glacial advances worldwide, allowing us in turn to make climate models more...
