A examine on 1,400 glaciers in Switzerland discovered that they’re shedding quantity and the method has accelerated over time.
The Polytechnic University ETH Zurich and the Swiss Federal Institute on Forest, Snow and Landscape Research on Monday introduced their findings based mostly on topographic modifications in glaciers since 1931.
The researchers discovered that by 2016, the quantity of ice had halved over the previous 85 years, and glaciers have declined by an extra 12% since then.
“Glacier retreat is accelerating. It is important to observe this phenomenon closely and quantify its historical dimensions because it allows us to estimate the responses of glaciers to a changing climate,” stated examine co-author Daniel Farinotti stated.
How the researchers reached their conclusion
Their examine, printed within the scientific journal The Cryosphere, used supplies from the Terra Image Archive, which covers about 86% of Switzerland’s glacier space, to investigate some 21,700 images taken between 1916 and 1947.
To reconstruct them, glaciologists used so-called stereophotogrammetry – a way used to find out the character, measurement and place of any object based mostly on picture pairs.
“If we know the topography of a glacier’s surface at two different points in time, we can calculate the difference in ice volume,” stated lead examine creator Eric Schiat Mannerfelt.
Not all glaciers are shedding ice on the identical fee, the researchers stated. Elevation, the quantity of particles on glaciers, and the flatness of the glacier’s “muzzle”, its lowest half and most susceptible to melting, all have an effect on the speed of retreat.
The researchers additionally discovered that two durations, the Twenties and Nineteen Eighties, really skilled a sporadic enhance in glacier mass, however this was influenced by a broader pattern of decline.
With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
