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U.N.: Glaciers shrinking at record rate

Glaciers are shrinking at record rates, according to U.N. Environment

Program

 

Scientists say 30 glaciers around the world showed record ice loss in

2006

 

UNEP warns ice loss could have dramatic consequences particularly in

India

 

Glaciers lost an average of about a foot of ice a year between 1980

and 1999

 

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ZURICH, Switzerland (AP) -- Glaciers are shrinking at record rates and

many could disappear within decades, the U.N. Environment Program said

Sunday.

 

 

Scientists say warming would have a huge affect on India where the

Himalayas feeds its rivers.

 

Scientists measuring the health of almost 30 glaciers around the

world found that ice loss reached record levels in 2006, the U.N.

agency said.

 

UNEP warned that further ice loss could have dramatic consequences

particularly in India, whose rivers are fed by Himalayan glaciers.

 

The west coast of North America, which gets much of its water from

glaciers in mountain ranges such as the Rockies and Sierra Nevada,

also would be affected, it said.

 

" There are many canaries emerging in the climate change coal mine, "

UNEP's executive director Achim Steiner said in a statement. " The

glaciers are perhaps among those making the most noise and it is

absolutely essential that everyone sits up and takes notice. "

 

He urged governments to agree stricter targets for emissions

reductions at an international meeting next year in the Danish

capital, Copenhagen.

 

On average, the glaciers shrank by 4.9 feet in 2006, the most recent

year for which data are available.

 

The most severe loss was recorded at Norway's Breidalblikkbrea

glacier, which shrank 10.2 feet in 2006, while Chile's Echaurren Norte

glacier was the only one to grow slightly thicker.

 

" The latest figures are part of what appears to be an accelerating

trend with no apparent end in sight, " said Wilfried Haeberli, director

of the World Glacier Monitoring Service.

 

The Zurich-based body conducted the study on which the findings are

based.

 

Haeberli said glaciers lost an average of about a foot of ice a year

between 1980 and 1999. But since the turn of the millennium the

average loss has increased to about 20 inches.

 

 

What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know, it's what we know for sure

that just ain't so.

- Mark Twain