MELTING MOUNTAIN glaciers in South America are contributing to sea-level rise faster than at any time in the last 350 years, according to new research published by a team from Aberystwyth University, the University of Exeter and Stockholm University.
The journal Nature Geosciencereported that the team surveyed the 270 largest "outlet glaciers" of the Patagonian Icefields, mapping changes in the position of the glaciers since the Little Ice Age and calculating how much they had retreated.
Astonishingly, the researchers found that the rate at which the glaciers lost their volume over the past 30 years is 10 to 100 times faster than the 350-year long-term average – and this is contributing to a marginal rise in sea levels globally. “Previous estimates of sea-level contribution from mountain glaciers were based on very short timescales,” according to lead author Prof Neil Glasser, of Aberystwyth University.
“We took a different approach by using a new method that allows us to look at longer timescales.
“We knew that glaciers in South America were much bigger during the Little Ice Age so we mapped the extent of the glaciers at that time and calculated how much ice has been lost by the retreat and thinning of the glaciers,” Prof Glasser wrote.
Dr Stephan Harrison, from the University of Exeter, said this that was “the first time anyone has made a direct estimate of the sea-level contribution from glaciers since the peak of the Industrial Revolution” and showed rates of melt well above the long-term average.