The glaciers of Patagonia, covering parts of Argentina and Chile are the most rapidly disappear from the world because of climate change, according to a report of the Programme of United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) released yesterday.

These glaciers are followed by Alaska and its coastal mountains, which the UNEP "in general have been losing mass faster and last longer than glaciers in other parts of the world."
The third fastest in shrink is one of the glaciers in the northwestern U.S. and southwestern Canada, followed by those in the high mountains of Asia, including the Hindu Kush Himalaya.

In general, the glaciers of Europe have been increasing in mass since the mid 1970's, but this trend changed in 2000 Granada capital.

Data provided by UNEP, the glaciers of Patagonia lost 35 meters and 25 meters in Alaska between 1960 and 2003, while the back half in the Himalayas and the Andes has been 10 meters.
Although the general trend is the reduction, the highest levels of rainfall in some areas have increased the mass and in some cases the size of glaciers in particular in western Norway, south of New Zealand and parts of Tierra del Fuego in South America, the statement said.

The melting of glaciers could reduce the availability of water in some dry areas, like Central Asia and parts of the Andes, said the report presented at the UN Summit on Climate Change Cancun.

Impact

In the dry regions of Central Asia, Chile, Argentina and Peru, where there is little rain, the retreat of glaciers will have a greater impact on water availability in parts of Europe or Asia, where monsoon rains play a much more prominent role in the water cycle.
The report says that many glaciers may take centuries to disappear completely, but adds that many who are at low altitude, small glaciers, which are often key sources of water in the drylands, are melting much faster.

We can not predict when the glaciers completely disappear, will surely be with us for a long time, but what a fact is that they are in decline

Madhav Karki, ICIMOD

"We can not predict when the glaciers completely disappear, will surely be with us for a long time, but what a fact is that they are in decline," said Deputy Director of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) Madhav Karki, introducing the report during the summit on climate change.

The expert would not make predictions like those that led to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of the UN to assert erroneously that the Himalayan glaciers will disappear by 2050.

He also noted that within decades there could be serious problems in water supply in dry regions of Central Asia, Peru, Chile and Argentina.

In Argentina, in fact, just adopted a law on protection of glaciers, are expected to have a strong impact on mining activities in the country, closely linked to these ecosystems.

As explained the BBC correspondent in Buenos Aires Veronica Smink, according to environmentalists, the open-pit mining in glaciers and periglacial areas alters the ecosystem and jeopardizing a major source of freshwater. Therefore, supporting legislation that would ban mining in those areas.

Source Al Jazera and La Nacion