Glaciers around the world are melting due to global warming. At present, the glacier cover of Ecuador has been reduced by 54% since 1980, going from 92 square km to the current 43 square kilometers.
An investigation carried out by the Ecuadorian Bolívar Cáceres in Quito within the framework of the meeting of experts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reveals impressive data on the melting of glaciers. Do you want to know more about it?
Glacier cover reduction
The glacial balance in Ecuador is measured in the following way. There are 7 glacial covers placed on volcanoes. This implies that there are 110 glacial languages. Climate change has more negative effects in different places on Earth, that is, it does not affect all places equally.
In Ecuador, the signs of the passage of climate change are more than evident when it is seen that this area in the 80s had 92 square kilometers of glacier, while at present it is only 43 square kilometers.
"We had a loss of approximately 54 percent of glacier cover in a 60-year period. It is a clear and concise indicator of how glaciers respond to climate change ”, he stated, although he gives a margin for its reduction to the natural geological process experienced by mountain glaciers, which“ human activity has accelerated ”.
IPCC meeting
Given the situation of the imminent melting of the glaciers and its consequence on the rise in sea level on a global scale, IPCC experts from more than 30 countries around the world They have met in the Ecuadorian capital to share the studies and research that have been carried out on oceans and the cryosphere, as indicators of climate change.
The meeting hosted 125 scientists from the IPCC and participants have been presenting their research throughout the week on oceans and cryosphere. The cryosphere is the part of the earth's surface where water is in a solid state such as sea ice or glaciers, and which are essential ecosystems for climate analysis and on which humanity depends.
The ocean and cryosphere issue it has become fundamental to numerous investigations around the world, thanks to the fact that they clearly reflect how climate change is affecting in a negative way.
The report is expected to be published in April this year and will help governments make decisions when creating science-based policies that help optimize resources in dealing with the situations posed by climate change.
Accelerating progress of global warming
The American Ko Barret, deputy administrator for Research of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and for fifteen years an active member of the IPCC of which she was vice president, has affirmed that global warming is something evident and that at this point it is useless to deny it .
“Of course there is warming, all the studies in the series for the last thirty years reflect a gradual warming progression of the entire Earth”, He maintains before some scientists who speak that there are areas where the opposite phenomenon occurs.
The issues addressed by scientists on global warming try to cover as much as possible, from the top of the glacial mountains to the depths of the ocean.
Some of the regions most vulnerable to climate change, such as some areas of the Arctic and high mountain areas, must be studied more deeply, since the reduction of glaciers could become a problem due to the increase in sea level at global scale. These are the regions around the world that are really undergoing an obvious change that modifies all the scenarios seen until just 50 years ago.
As you can see, the glaciers of Ecuador are melting at an accelerated rate and this will have serious consequences in the near future.