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According to a study published in the journal of the European Federation of Geology, between 1994 and 2017, the earth melted as many as 28 trillion tons of glaciers, and the melting rate of glaciers is still accelerating. In just over 20 years, 2.8 billion tons of glaciers have disappeared. Perhaps we don’t have a very intuitive concept of how much water there is in the 2.8 billion tons of glaciers. If we compare it from another angle, we will know. If these 2.8 billion tons of liquid water melted by glaciers are placed in a lake with an area of comparable size to ours, the water in this lake will reach 2.9 meters deep. In other words, if these 2.8 billion tons of glaciers are placed in our China, they can be submerged 2.9 meters. What the hell is going on?
This study was jointly completed by University College London, University of Edinburgh, University of Leeds, and Earth observation data company Earthwave. This is the first study of glacier melting using dangerous data. In the study, researchers counted glaciers including Antarctic ice sheet, Arctic sea ice, Greenland ice sheet and about 215,000 mountains around the world. Finally, researchers found that in the 1990s, the Earth melted about 80 million tons of glaciers each year, and by 2017, the melted glaciers each year reached 130 million tons. In the past 20 years, the Arctic sea ice melted the fastest, reaching 760 million tons, while the Antarctic ice sheet melted 650 million tons. The melting glaciers in the Himalayas, Alps and other mountains and rivers are about 610 million tons.
Regarding the question of why glaciers are accelerating their melting speed, researchers said that the earth's climate warming is the main reason for the accelerated melting speed of these glaciers. Among them, the melting rate of glaciers in the Arctic and mountains is mainly due to the rise in atmospheric temperatures, while the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet is mainly affected by the rise in seawater temperatures. The main reasons for the melting of Greenland and Antarctic ice shelves include atmospheric temperatures and seawater temperatures. In general, the accelerated melting rate of glaciers is largely directly related to our human activities.
As the speed of melting of the glaciers accelerates, many series of problems will be caused later. For example, the originally white snow and glaciers can theoretically reflect a large amount of solar radiation back to space. In this way, these places absorb less sun energy, the temperature rises slowly, and the melting speed of glaciers is naturally slow. As the melting rate of glaciers and snow accelerates, some glaciers become thinner, and even directly expose naked land. Compared with white glaciers and snow, these naked lands have very low efficiency in reflecting solar radiation, which will absorb a large amount of sun energy and the temperature will be higher, which will accelerate the melting rate of surrounding glaciers. This is a vicious cycle of problems.
"New Arctic" forms
As glaciers accelerate the melting speed, the earth is really undergoing earth-shaking changes. Some areas have become inappropriate for living organisms due to drought, floods or other natural disasters . Research by scientists shows that the climate system of the Arctic has undergone tremendous changes, and the "New Arctic" is forming.
Of course, let me first explain here that the "New Arctic" does not mean that the "Arctic" appears in other places, but rather that the climatic conditions of the Arctic have become different from the past, become "unrecognizable", and a new climate environment has emerged.
According to a research report published in the journal " Scientific American ", a brand new Arctic climate system is being formed, and scientists even use the "New Arctic" directly to describe changes in the Arctic. For example, the temperature in the Arctic region is continuing to rise, and the rising speed is faster than in many areas on the earth. As the temperature rises, the sea ice in the Arctic is gradually decreasing. It is expected that "iceless summer" may occur in the near future, that is, there may be no sea ice in the sea surface of Arctic Ocean in the future.
This is by no means an alarmist. Since the observation data of satellite in 1979, sea ice in the Arctic has decreased by 31%, and the area of Arctic sea ice is still on the decline. In addition, the number of rainfall in the Arctic is also increasing, and these situations have exceeded previous observations, said Laura Landrum, a researcher at the Colorado National Center for Atmospheric Research, which marks an excessive impact on the Arctic towards this new climate state.
So, now we really need to pay attention to these problems, because the problem of climate warming has been around for a long time and cannot be solved in a short time. We should take measures as soon as possible to deal with it. In fact, we have indeed taken various measures over the years to slow the trend of warming, including developing clean energy and reducing the consumption of fossil fuels. However, the efforts we have made are still not enough and we need to continue to work hard.
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