Glaciers are an important freshwater resource. When glaciers disappear completely, the annual flow of fresh water that we all depend on ceases.
"This means that neither humans, animals nor plants will have access to water to the extent that they are used to and have so far adapted their lives," says Nina Kirchner, glaciologist at the Department of Natural Geography at Stockholm University and director of the Bolin Center for Climate Research.
All dependent on glaciers
Glaciers may seem distant, but we all depend on the Earth's ice masses and its melting water. When glaciers retreat, they change the availability and quality of downstream water, which, according to the IPCC, has consequences for several sectors of society.
- What happens in a glacier doesn't stop there. The climate system, of which the melting glaciers are a part, spans the entire globe. This means that the changes that are happening now will lead to changes in other parts of the world in the near future.
Fresh water decreases
If high carbon dioxide emissions continue, smaller glaciers, for example in Scandinavia and Europe, will lose more than 80 percent of their current ice mass by the year 2100, according to the IPCC.
In all emission scenarios, the runoff water will first increase, as the glaciers melt, to reach peaks to 2100, or earlier. As the glaciers disappear, the amount of fresh water available then decreases.
For example, according to IPCC, some glaciers in the Alps and Andes have already passed their highest freshwater flows and local communities have been affected by water shortages.
Decisive choice
The IPCC notes that the choices we make now are crucial to the glaciers' future. The challenge lies in the fact that short-term political instruments do not work on the same time scales as the melting of ice masses.
- We cannot influence the time scales of the climate, the only thing we can influence is how we behave and how we make decisions to change the world's societies. We only have one planet and we all have responsibility for it. It is a challenge that we have not had in human history so far, but now we face it and we must act, says Nina Kirchner.