Planet in peril: Keeping the sea at bay!

Glaciers across the globe are melting faster than at any point in the last century. This is an alarming situation and It is absolutely essential that everyone sits up and takes notice. The glaciers are responding faster to climate change than anyone anticipated and are slipping into the sea ‘like toothpaste squeezing from a tube’.

Well, sledding at the North Pole isn't likely to be an option much longer! The ice cap is thinning, ice sheets are melting, and the process seems to be accelerating as 30 key international glaciers are melting about six times faster than in the 1980s. Nowhere is the meltdown more dramatic than in the sub-Arctic and Arctic region where there are more than 100,000 glaciers. The artic glacier ‘Blue ice’, which has not melted for lakhs of years has melted this year, sending shock waves across the world. The retreat of Arctic ice raises some troubling issues. Scientists had projected that the artic’s oceanic ice sheets would likely be gone between 2020 and 2030. But now, since the ice is receding much more rapidly than they had previously thought, this will happen somewhere between 2013 and 2015. So It's increasingly clear that on the current trajectory, we're going to have an ice-free Arctic in the summertime within seven years from now!

With giant ice shelves breaking apart and crashing into the sea, the impact can be drastic; the rising sea levels will lead to disastrous floods with submerged lands, washing away millions of people. Several scientific papers suggest that one meter of sea-level rise will probably mean that somewhere on the order of 150 million people will be displaced from their homes or homelands, in Bangladesh for instance. And places in india like Mumbai, West Bengal and Chennai would be drowned!

Wow…I am keen on this topic because I have many questions of how this could affect me, my future, and the world I live in… So here I go on with the causes, the impact and some ways to combat glacial melting..

The cause:
There are many reasons, but at the moment I can think of only three.

1. Increasing accumulation of dust [from volcanic eruptions for one example] on the glacier's surface. The "dirtier" the surfaces of the glaciers ice, the less sunlight it reflects, and the more sunlight it absorbs, increasing its surface temperature, and causing increased melting.
2. Global warming by releasing carbon dioxide and methane from fossil fuel combustion into the atmosphere.
3. The increase in the emission if the Green House Gasses(GHG)

How it works: (source: internet)
Glaciers are very important to humans as well as plants and animals.
The ice cover acts as a protective mirror to the sun’s heat. Ice is a mirror to the sun and reflects almost all the sun's energy back into space.When it melts, it is replaced by water—which looks like a black-body radiator, which absorbs 80 percent of the sun's energy. So as the ice gets smaller, there's this feedback process that's accelerating. These trends are only likely to accelerate, even without increased greenhouse gas emissions. Because ice reflects sunlight back into space, polar melting will allow more solar radiation to reach the Earth's surface, thus speeding warming processes. As the Earth warms further, the methane gas trapped beneath the melting northern permafrost will escape into the atmosphere. This gas, which is even more efficient at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, will almost certainly lead to even more severe runaway planetary warming.

Also, the dilution of the salt content of the sea which is caused by melting ice caps could result in slowing or stopping major ocean currents, and this could prevent the warming effects of these currents on other geographic regions.

Fact file:
1. In 2006, the 30 glaciers included in the study shrank an average of 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) -- more than double the rate of shrinkage in 2005.
2. If the glaciers were to melt completely, ocean levels would rise by up to seven metres.

The Impact:
1. The ‘arctic meltdown’ could have serious consequences for people who depend on them for water. Rivers in India, for instance, are fed by water from disappearing Himalayan glaciers as billions, of people depend directly or indirectly on these natural water storage facilities for drinking water, agriculture, industry and power generation during key parts of the year.
2. Fast-melting Arctic ice has the potential to cause coastal erosion, impact indigenous peoples' livelihoods and make the region's mineral and other resources more accessible with new, formerly inaccessible marine routes.
3. Many species of freshwater and saltwater plants and animals (marine organisms) are dependent on glacier-fed waters to ensure the cold water habitat to which they have adapted.
4. The melting of the glaciers also has huge implications for future hydro-electric generation in the north and also disrupt mountain recreation
5. The most important, causing rise in sea levels having a global impact. The rising sea levels could threaten coastal communities from Bangladesh to the Netherlands to parts of the United States.
6. The loss of the ice caps in general could affect the world’s temperature because ice cover also acts as a protective mirror to the suns heat.

What can be done?
>> We need to reduce global emissions of greenhouse gases to levels that will avoid the continued warming of the Arctic and the anticipated resulting disruption of the global climate system.
>>We need to build the foundation for building the climate framework. It called on Arctic nations -- including Canada, the United States, Russia, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark, through its Greenland territory -- to work together to help the region's communities adapt to the challenges ahead.

The recent negotiations in Bali are one step in that direction. But, unless there is a sense of urgency and full implementation [of the agreement] in the next couple of years, the world is likely to experience the consequences of an accelerated warming of the planet. The impacts of that are likely to be challenges to human well-being, economic stability and international security. While US politicians deny the reality of global warming and environmental groups demand the implementation of the crippled Kyoto Protocol, radical environmentalists are faced with a serious challenge. How do we confront-and yes, halt-global climate change before all of the planet's systems are damaged beyond restoration? ….If ever there was a time to stop chasing the fear of reform and pursue revolution, this is it!

* Phew! Signing off with a tiny winy hope that people wake up & act upon this alarming predicament, so that we succeed in meeting the challenge..and indeed save the beautiful world we live in!*

P.S: If interested, check tis url- http://youtube.com/watch?v=q2ARiPPtvWo

It is a video of a recent glacier that broke off in the Arctic circle. Enjoy!