From the Alps to the Andes, carbon pollution accounted for an estimated 69% of ice loss from the world’s glaciers between 1991 and 2010, according to a study in the journal Science. “Until now, scientists have struggled to quantify the impact of human behaviour on glaciers because the frozen rivers of ice take decades, perhaps centuries, to respond to rising temperatures and shifts in snow and rainfall,” Thomson Reuters reports. The study, led by Ben Marzeion at the University of Innsbruck, “used historical observations of glaciers around the world, except in Antarctica, twinned with computer models to simulate all factors that could explain the retreat. It found that natural variations were not enough on their own, meaning man-made greenhouse gases played an increasing role.”
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