• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
Celebrating our 1,000th edition. The climate news you need
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  FEATURED
BREAKING: No Public Finance for East Coast LNG Projects, Wilkinson Says July 4, 2022
‘Climate Math Gets Harder’ as Radicalized Supreme Court Upends U.S. Carbon Regulation July 4, 2022
Dire Living Conditions, Climate-Driven Heat Wave Produce Deadliest Human Smuggling Event in U.S. History July 4, 2022
Ex-Fossil Workers Convert Old Oilfields to Solar Farms After ‘Rapid Upskilling’ in Alberta June 29, 2022
London Becomes Biggest City to Sign Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty June 29, 2022
Next
Prev
Home Climate News Network

Canadian glaciers are melting fast

March 7, 2013
Reading time: 3 minutes
Primary Author: Alex Kirby

Canada’s far north is warming – and there’s probably no going back

Canada’s far north is warming – and there’s probably no going back

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Many of the Canadian far north’s glaciers are likely to have melted by the end of the century, researchers believe, making significant sea-level rise inevitable. LONDON, 7 March – Canada’s Arctic Archipelago glaciers will melt faster than ever in the next few centuries, research by European-funded scientists has shown. They say 20% of the Canadian Arctic glaciers may have disappeared by the end of this century, which would mean an extra sea level rise of 3.5cm The results of the research, part of the EU-funded ice2sea programme, will be published in Geophysical Research Letters this week, and the paper, Irreversible mass loss of Canadian Arctic Archipelago glaciers, is now available online. The researchers developed a climate model for the island group in the north of Canada in which they simulated the shrinking and growing of glaciers in this area. The model correctly “predicted” the ice mass loss measured over the last ten years, and the researchers then used it to look forward to project the effect of future climate change on the Arctic Archipelago glaciers. The most important result of the research is that it shows that the melting will probably be irreversibie, according to lead author Dr Jan Lenaerts of Utrecht University. He says: “Even if we assume that global warming is not happening quite so fast, it is still highly likely that the ice is going to melt at an alarming rate. The chances of it growing back are very slim.” One main reason for this expected irreversibility is that snow melting on tundra, and sea ice loss from around the glaciers, will intensify regional warming. Snow and sea ice reflect the sunlight, and when they disappear a large part of the sunlight will instead be absorbed by the land and the sea, raising the local temperature significantly.

Successful backcasting

  In one scenario considered by the scientists 20% of the volume of the glaciers disappears by the end of this century. This would be accompanied by an average global temperature rise of 3°C. But the regional rise around the Canadian ice caps – a form of glacier in which the ice flows to the sea in many directions – would be 8°C. And this is not an extreme scenario, Dr Lenaerts says. Canada’s Arctic Archipelago glaciers are one of the largest ice bodies in the world after Greenland and the Antarctic. If they  melted completely, global average sea level would rise by 20 cms. Since the year 2000 the temperature in this area has risen by 1-2°C and the ice volume has already decreased significantly. Professor David Vaughan, the programme leader of ice2sea, who is based at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, UK, says: “Added to glaciers in Alaska, the Russian Arctic and Patagonia, these apparently small contributions add up to significant sea-level rise. “A key success of this study was in showing that the model performed well in reproducing recently observed changes. That success gives us confidence in how the model predicts future changes”. Glaciers in many parts of the world are undergoing rapid melting, although some experts argue that natural variability needs to be taken into account as well as climate change (and see our story of 3 March, Glaciers on the slide.) – Climate News Network



in Climate News Network

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

stux / Pixabay
Air & Marine

Big Seven European Airlines Lag on Reducing Sky-High Emissions: Report

June 13, 2022
76
Ars Electronica/flickr
Solar

Unique ‘Smartflower’ Microgrid to Power Saskatchewan High School

June 13, 2022
155
http://midwestenergynews.com/2013/10/24/as-pipeline-concerns-mount-a-renewed-focus-on-the-great-lakes-enbridge-mackinac-line-5/
Pipelines / Rail Transport

Line 5 Closure Brings Negligible Rise in Gas Prices, Enbridge Consultant Finds

June 10, 2022
206

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

Wikimedia Commons

BREAKING: No Public Finance for East Coast LNG Projects, Wilkinson Says

July 4, 2022
101
angela n./flickr

‘Climate Math Gets Harder’ as Radicalized Supreme Court Upends U.S. Carbon Regulation

July 4, 2022
98
U.S. Navy/picryl

Montreal to Host New NATO Climate Centre as Military Analyst Confronts Global ‘Hyperthreat’

July 4, 2022
77
opinion polling gender green recovery climate action

Conservative Women Far More Likely Than Men to Support Green Transition, EcoAnalytics Research Finds

July 4, 2022
72
Maurits90/Wikimedia Commons

San Francisco Commuter Train Derailed by Scorching Track Temperatures, Extreme Heat

July 4, 2022
45
Fadi Hage/wikimedia commons

Indoor Farming Revolution Comes with Significant Carbon Cost

July 4, 2022
33

Recent Posts

EdmondMeinfelder/flickr

Dire Living Conditions, Climate-Driven Heat Wave Produce Deadliest Human Smuggling Event in U.S. History

July 4, 2022
32
Adrian Grycuk/Wikimedia Commons

Youth Climate Case Moves to Top Tribunal in European Court

July 4, 2022
30
Seci/wikimedia commons

Saudi Aramco Talks Net-Zero, Plans to Boost Production Through 2035

July 4, 2022
18
Keith Weller/Wikimedia Commons

U.S. Methane Plan Gives Big Ag a Free Pass

July 4, 2022
24
Mont SUTTON snow terrain

Southern Quebec Towns Scramble for Solutions as Water Sources Dwindle

July 4, 2022
33
Pxhere

Marine Stewardship Figures Prominently in Latest Project Drawdown List

July 4, 2022
22
Next Post
We’re caribou people’: But the caribou are changing

Tar sands struggle reaches Europe

The Energy Mix

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}