At its thickest, the ice masses are six meters thick, and the area of the glacier has been halved to around one hectare, reports the Bavarian Academy of Sciences (BAdW) in a report. – The remaining ice will melt away completely in the next one to two years, writes the academy. The loss of Søndre Schneeferner will mean that Germany has four glaciers left, all in the Bavarian Alps. To achieve glacier status, the entire ice mass must be larger than 0.1 square kilometers in size, write the US Geological Survey. If one follows these criteria, Søndre Schneeferner would not have been considered a glacier in 2018 either, even though it was twice as large, and measured ten meters at its thickest. When a glacier is less than 0.1 square kilometers in size, or 10 hectares, it is considered to have too little mass to move, the American geologists write further. Expect to lose them all within ten years Climate change is causing glaciers to melt rapidly both in the Alps and elsewhere in the world. This in turn will lead to more than a fifth of the rise in sea level during this century. Bavaria’s Climate Ministry expects that Germany will lose all its glaciers within ten years, they announced in a report last year. Before that, researchers had calculated that they would survive until around 2050. The Svartisen is one of the largest glaciers in Norway. Photo: LISI NIESNER / Reuters – Even if we significantly limit our emissions in the coming decades, more than a third of the glaciers that exist in the world will melt before 2100, Verdas Naturfond writes about the phenomenon. – When it comes to sea ice, 95% of the oldest and thickest ice in the Arctic is already gone. It is nevertheless glaciers, and not sea ice, which causes the sea level to rise, writes the Norwegian Natural Resources Fund, as the latter has the same effect as the water level as ice cubes in a glass of water. Nevertheless, this decline has had its own consequences, on everything from the weather patterns in the rest of the world to the living conditions of marmots and polar bears.
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Germany has lost one of its five glaciers – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
