B.C.’s glaciers could be gone in 80 years, study says

Imagine B.C. without any glaciers and low-lying parts of our coast hit even harder by higher tides, all within 80 years.

New research is painting an even more dire picture of the effects of climate change, including the loss of up to two-thirds of the world’s glaciers by the end of the century.

An Alaska-based study just published in the journal Science took the most comprehensive look yet at the world’s 215,000 glaciers and suggests, at the current rate of global warming, two-thirds will have disappeared by the year 2100.

Even in best-case scenarios with global temperatures tamed, half are predicted to melt away.

In places like B.C., the researchers forecast that all glaciers at mid-latitudes could be gone by then, which would potentially mean a much higher risk for severe drought and habitat loss.

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It should be noted the study did not look at polar ice sheets but, even without taking those into account, it forecasts sea levels will rise more than previously estimated, anywhere from nine to 16 centimetres over the next 80 years, depending on how much the globe warms and how much fossil fuel is burned.

Globally that would displace 10 million people who currently live below what will potentially become the high tide line.

“No matter what, we’re going to lose a lot of the glaciers,” says study lead author David Rounce, a glaciologist and engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University.

“But we have the ability to make a difference by limiting how many glaciers we lose,” Rounce tells PBS.

Study co-author Regine Hock, a glaciologist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the University of Oslo in Norway says for many small glaciers it is too late.

“However, globally our results clearly show that every degree of global temperature matters to keep as much ice as possible locked up in the glaciers.”

Based on pledges from the COP26 United Nations climate change conference, global mean temperature is projected to increase by 2.7 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, well above the goal of only 1.5 degrees.

The study looked at glacier melt scenarios from 1.5 to 4 degrees Celsius.