Nearly 40 percent of the total mass of the world’s glaciers is now doomed to melt even if global temperatures were to stop rising in the immediate future, a new study has warned.
Researchers estimate that these ice floes could lose 39 percent of their mass by 2020, a trend that is already irreversible, which would contribute to an increase of 113 millimeters in global sea level.
An article published in the journal Science pointed out that the loss increases to 76 percent if the world continues with its current climate policies, which would make it unlikely to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Although the study offers a bleak prognosis for the world’s glaciers, its authors intend to offer “a message of hope,” said Lilian Schuster, a researcher at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, who co-led the research.
“We want to show that with every tenth of a degree less of global warming, we can preserve glacier ice”.
In 2015, almost the entire international community pledged to work together in the Paris Agreement to keep global warming below
2.0 degrees C above pre-industrial levels and, if possible, limit the increase to 1.5 degrees.
The United States left the Paris Agreement twice: in 2020, during Donald Trump’s first presidency, a decision reversed by Joe Biden when he came to the White House in January 2021, but returned to the starting point with the Republican’s return last January 20.
This time the withdrawal of the United States from the pact will be effective in 2026.
With information from Prensa Latina
Translated by Aliani Rojas Fernandez
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