As the worst effects of human impact on the climate worsen, we expect to see more and more news like the loss of Siberian permafrost and other similar tales. This brings to light the immediate need to turn things around before we leave lasting impacts on our planet that not even our descendants can fix or reverse.
The signs that we see from Norway’s Svalbard archipelago don’t seem to make things any better, as recent findings published in the journal Nature show that the glaciers located above the famous island group are now in danger of experiencing double its current ice loss by the year 2100—and that’s considering that the world even meets its climate targets.
The are has warmed about 1.7 °C per decade since 1991—seven (7) times higher than the global average within the same time period, according to New Scientist. Additionally, a collaboration between Norwegian and US scientists used a combination of aerial photographs of several glaciers present in Svalbard from the 1930s and combined them with temperature and precipitation data to model ice loss around the area between the 1930s and 2010—an approach the team called the “space-for-time” approach.
What the team revealed was alarming: at “modest” warming, the rate at which the Svalbard glaciers thinned between the 1930s and 2010 increased some 1.9 times, at a rate of around 0.67 m a year. However, if things are left unchecked and climate change continues to worsen, the glaciers are expected to lose up to 0.92 m a year.
Said lead researcher Emily Geyman, from the California Institute of Technology: “Svalbard is often treated as a canary in the coal mine. Studying the behavior of its glaciers gives you a glimpse into the future for other regions.” Geyman added that while the findings have global ramifications, locals will feel the greatest effect.
This is especially concerning given the fact that the archipelago contains the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a backup facility designed to serve as long-term storage of seed duplicates from crops around the world. After all, the facility relies on permafrost and rock surrounding the mountain it was built into to keep the seeds safe in case of a power outage.
According to Geyman, current glacial melt in Svalbard has already accounted for some 1.4% of global sea-level rise since 1936; however, the University of Colorado at Boulder’s Twila Moon noted in an accompanying study also published in Nature that predicted future ice loss levels were actually lower compared to previous projections.
Finally, the research team hopes that their novel “space-for-time” approach can innovate other glaciers worldwide that struggle with historical data to compare recent readings to.
References
- Geyman, E. C., J. J. van Pelt, W., Maloof, A. C., Aas, H. F., & Kohler, J. (2022). Historical glacier change on Svalbard predicts doubling of mass loss by 2100. Nature, 601(7893), 374–379. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04314-4
- Moon, T. A. (2022). Future ice loss captured by historical snapshots. Nature, 601(7893), 325–326. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-00046-1
- Vaughan, A. (2022, January 19). Svalbard glacier ice loss projected to roughly double by 2100. New Scientist. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2304990-svalbard-glacier-ice-loss-projected-to-roughly-double-by-2100/
