This photo taken on November 14, 2023 shows a street in Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Norway. (Xinhua/Zhang Yuliang)
This study shows that climate change not only affects the total area of glaciers, but also the information that glaciers would naturally hold about their past and the Earth’s past.
ROME, Feb. 13 (Xinhua) – Arctic glaciers are “losing their memory” of their climate history due to global warming, an international study coordinated by Italy’s National Research Council (CNR) has found. Ta.
The study, published in the scientific journal The Cryosphere, shows that climate change will not only affect the total area of glaciers, but also the information that glaciers would naturally hold about their past and the Earth’s past. It shows that it gives.
“The climate signal contained in Svalbard’s glaciers is rapidly deteriorating due to ice melting due to global warming. Svalbard’s glaciers in the Arctic are also losing their memory,” the CNR said.
The research was carried out between 2012 and 2019 and was led by scientists from the CNR’s Institute of Polar Sciences (ISP) and Venice’s Ca’ Foscari University.
Researchers studied the evolution of the Hortedalfonna Glacier, one of the highest glaciers on Svalbard. They found that the climate signal that was visible in 2012 had completely disappeared by 2019.
This photo taken on November 14, 2023 shows a street in Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Norway. (Xinhua/Zhang Yuliang)
“Svalbard is particularly sensitive to climate change due to the relatively low elevation of its main ice sheet,” said Carlo Barbante, director of CNR-ISP and professor at Ca’ Foscari University.
Barbante said the geographic location emphasizes the phenomenon of Arctic amplification, which means temperatures in the Arctic region are rising faster than the global average.
“We need to think of ice sheets as pages of ancient texts that scientists can interpret, even if evidence of atmospheric warming is still preserved within the ice,” said CNR-ISP researcher Andrea Spolar. “Seasonal climate signals are being lost.” . ”
This means that at the current rate of global warming, glaciers at these elevations are “at risk of losing the climate information recorded within the glaciers, jeopardizing their recovery over time as the climate changes our planet faces.” He said that means that.
The researchers highlighted the urgent need to combat the ongoing ice melting process to preserve glacier archives and associated climate information. ■
