Impact of a global temperature rise of 1.5 degrees celsius on asia's glaciers
Answers
Answer:
Very large
Step-by-step explanation:
International trekkers pass through a glacier at the Mount Everest base camp, Nepal. Scientists say a third of the ice stored in Asia’s glaciers will be lost by the end of the century even if global warming stays below 1.5 degrees Celsius. Photo: AP
International trekkers pass through a glacier at the Mount Everest base camp, Nepal. Scientists say a third of the ice stored in Asia’s glaciers will be lost by the end of the century even if global warming stays below 1.5 degrees Celsius. Photo: AP
Asia’s mountain glaciers will lose at least a third of their mass through global warming by century’s end, with dire consequences for millions of people who rely on them for fresh water, researchers said on Wednesday.
This is a best-case scenario, based on the assumption that the world manages to limit average global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial levels, a team wrote in the journal Nature.
“To meet the 1.5 C target will be a task of unprecedented difficulty,” the researchers said, “and even then, 36 per cent (give or take seven per cent) of the ice mass in the high mountains of Asia is projected to be lost” by 2100.
With warming of 3.5 C, 4.0 C and 6.0 C respectively, Asian glacier losses could amount to 49 per cent, 51 per cent or 65 per cent by the end of the century, according to the team’s modelling study.
The high mountains of Asia (HMA) comprise a geographical region surrounding the Tibetan plateau, holding the biggest store of frozen water outside the poles.
It feeds many of the world’s great rivers, including the Ganges, the Indus and the Brahmaputra, on which hundreds of millions of people depend.
Nearly 200 nations adopted the Paris Agreement in 2015, which sets the goal of limiting warming to a level “well below” 2.0 C, while “pursuing efforts” to achieve a lower ceiling of 1.5 C.
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Earth’s surface has already warmed by about 1.0 C, according to scientists.
A Kashmiri nomad tends to his heard of sheep and goats as he crosses a glacier near Dubgan, 70 kilometres (43 miles) south of Srinagar, India, Scientists say a third of the ice stored in Asia’s glaciers will be lost by the end of the century even if global warming stays below 1.5 degrees Celsius. Photo: AP
A Kashmiri nomad tends to his heard of sheep and goats as he crosses a glacier near Dubgan, 70 kilometres (43 miles) south of Srinagar, India, Scientists say a third of the ice stored in Asia’s glaciers will be lost by the end of the century even if global warming stays below 1.5 degrees Celsius. Photo: AP
For high warming scenarios, experts predict land-gobbling sea-level rise, worsening storms, more frequent droughts and floods, species loss, and the spread of disease.
The Asian high mountains, the new study said, were already warming more rapidly than the global average.
A global temperature rise of 1.5 C would mean an average increase in the region of about 2.1 C, with differences between mountain ranges – all of which will warm by more than 1.5 C.
The Hindu Kush mountain range would warm by about 2.3 C and the eastern Himalayas by some 1.9 C, the study forecast.