Ice melted faster than expected throughout the Earth

On December 23, scientists around the world warned that ice is melting faster than expected across the Earth from Arctic sea ice to Antarctica and alpine areas in Asia, Africa and Latin America. .

The rapid melting of the ice at the poles of the Earth, the ice sheets and glaciers are the clearest signs of global warming. From 1979 to 1996, the Antarctic ice sheet lost an average of 3% annually and in the following decade the ice sheet decreased by 11%.

In 2007, the Antarctic ice sheet area decreased by 27% compared to 2005 and 38% compared to the average area of ​​ice from 1979 to 2007.

A 400 km ² iceberg has separated from Antarctica and this is the 10th time in just a few years, such a huge ice sheet separated from this ice continent. It is noteworthy that the 3,000-square-kilometer ice sheet removed from Antarctica in 2002.

Illustration.

Scientists at the University of Washington and the American Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said that from 1978 to 2007, the Antarctic ice age of 5 years and older fell from 57% to only 7% and forecast In the summer of 2037, a 1 million-year-old ice sheet will show up.

In 2015, the Arctic will be virtually free of ice in the summer, threatening to destroy the diverse ecosystem that is now the habitat of polar bears, seals and walruses.

Ice melting in the Arctic will also release a huge amount of methane causing the greenhouse effect to quickly warm up Greenland.

The world's glacier monitoring agency said the glacial melting speed of glaciers worldwide doubled between 1996 and 2005. Himalayan glaciers have decreased by an average of 10-60m per year.

From 1970 to 2006, glaciers in Peru and Bolivia in the Andes, South America, where 90% of the world's glaciers, lost 1/3 of the area.

The glaciers in Tanzania, which are the symbol of the long-standing spirit and culture of the people, lost 84% of their area between 1912 and 2007 and are still melting fast.

In North America, 98% of Alaska's glaciers are thinning and the area is shrinking rapidly.