PARIS - As the planet's polar ice sheets destabilize amid rising temperatures, a landmark UN assessment of Earth's retreating frozen spaces is also set to spell out how melting mountain glaciers will impact humanity in the decades to come.
AFP has obtained an official draft summary of the forthcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) report on oceans and the cryosphere.
It says that the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets lost roughly 400 billion tons of mass annually in the decade to 2015, corresponding to a sea-level rise of around 1.2 millimeters each year.
But glaciers high up mountains also lost around 280 billion tons of ice each year during the same period, raising seas a further 0.77 millimeters annually.
"In the past 100 years, 35 percent of global sea-level rises came from glacier melting," Anders Levermann, climate professor at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Change Impact, told AFP.
He said that future sea-level rises from glacial melt alone would be limited to 30 to 50 centimeters as they contain a limited amount of ice.
By comparison, there's enough frozen water in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets to lift global sea levels several dozen meters.
"(Melting glaciers) contribute significantly to sea-level rise, it's just not this huge number that Greenland and Antarctica could contribute," added Levermann, who was not involved in the IPCC report.
There are roughly 200,000 glaciers -- vast, ancient reserves of ice -- on Earth and their relative smallness compared to the polar ice sheets makes them especially vulnerable to rising temperatures.
Their retreat is likely to impact inland communities the world over, for whom glaciers are a key water source.
The glaciers nestled high in the Himalayas provide water for 250 million people in nearby valleys and feed the rivers upon which a further 1.65 billion people rely for food, energy and income.
One study referenced in the IPCC report warns that Asian high mountain glaciers could lose more than a third of their ice, even if humans slash greenhouse gas emissions and limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
A continuation of "business-as-usual" in the coming decades with a global economy still powered mainly by fossil fuels could see two-thirds lost.
"Drinking water is going to be affected, agriculture is going to be affected and we are talking about millions and millions of people," said Harjeet Singh, international climate lead at ActionAid.
The IPCC summary said that areas of the central and western Himalayas are already facing a noticeable fall in water for irrigation.
'A glacier is a reservoir'
The summary also warned that in regions with little ice cover, including Central Europe, North Asia and Scandinavia, glaciers were projected to shrink 80 percent by 2100.
One study this year by scientists in Switzerland warned that unchecked emissions could see more than 90 percent of Alpine glaciers disappear by century's end.
Harry Zekollari, from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, said most people did not appreciate how crucial the giant ice structures were.
"A glacier is a reservoir. A healthy glacier will typically melt in summer and become a bit bigger in winter. That means that when people need water most, they get water from the glacier," Zekollari told AFP.
'Fighting for water'
Melting glaciers also have other human impacts.
The citizens of La Paz, Bolivia's administrative capital, get as much as 30 percent of their water from Andean glaciers during the dry winter months.
In 2016, the city ran dry.
"About 100 neighborhoods were without any water for more than a month, it was like a horror movie from the future," Marcos Andrade, director of the Laboratory of Atmospheric Physics at San Andres University, told AFP.
"People were fighting for their water."
Despite this stark example of what can happen when glacial water supply is disrupted, Andrade said there was a paradox in explaining how melting glaciers are bad news for agriculture.
"We have now more water from the glaciers because they are melting and farmers maybe don't realize that," he said.
"Things are going better for them at the moment. But once the water reaches a peak it will be scarce and it's going to be something we are probably going to fight over."
The IPCC says glacier runoff is likely to continue to increase in the short term before declining late century, bringing increased instability and more landslides, avalanches and more polluted water.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
COPENHAGEN - Greenland on Friday dismissed the notion that it might be up for sale after reports that US President Donald Trump had privately discussed with his advisers the idea of buying the world's biggest island.
"We are open for business, but we're not for sale," Greenland's foreign minister Ane Lone Bagger told Reuters.
Trump is due to visit Copenhagen in September and the Arctic will be on the agenda during meetings with the prime ministers of Denmark and Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory.
Talk of a Greenland purchase was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. Two sources familiar with the situation told Reuters that the notion had been laughed off by some advisers as a joke but was taken more seriously by others in the White House.
Danish politicians on Friday poured scorn on the idea.
"It has to be an April Fool's joke. Totally out of season," former prime minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said on Twitter.
"If he is truly contemplating this, then this is final proof that he has gone mad," foreign affairs spokesperson for the Danish People's Party Soren Espersen told broadcaster DR.
"The thought of Denmark selling 50,000 citizens to the United States is completely ridiculous," he said.
Greenland, a self-ruling part of Denmark located between the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans, is dependent on Danish economic support. It handles its own domestic affairs while Copenhagen looks after defense and foreign policy.
"I am sure a majority in Greenland believes it is better to have a relation to Denmark than the United States, in the long term," Aaja Chemnitz Larsen, Danish MP from Greenland's second-largest party Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA), told Reuters.
"My immediate thought is 'No, thank you'," she said.
Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod were not available for comment but officials said they would respond later on Friday. The US Embassy in Copenhagen was also not immediately available for comment.
"Oh dear lord. As someone who loves Greenland, has been there nine times to every corner and loves the people, this is a complete and total catastrophe," former US ambassador to Denmark, Rufus Gifford, said on Twitter.
Greenland is gaining attention from global super powers including China, Russia and the United States due to its strategic location and its mineral resources.
In May, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Russia was behaving aggressively in the Arctic and China's actions there had to be watched closely as well.
A defense treaty between Denmark and the United States dating back to 1951 gives the US military rights over the Thule Air Base in northern Greenland.
There has been no indication that a Greenland purchase will be on the agenda for Trump's talks with Danish officials.
Martin Lidegaard, senior lawmaker of the Danish Social Liberal Party and a former foreign minister, called the idea "a grotesque proposal" which had no basis in reality.
"We are talking about real people and you can't just sell Greenland like an old colonial power," he told Reuters.
"But what we can take seriously is that the US stakes and interest in the Arctic is significantly on the rise and they want a much bigger influence," he added.
In 1917, Denmark sold off the then Danish West Indies islands for $25 million to the United States, which renamed them the United States Virgin Islands.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
WASHINGTON, United States—President Donald Trump is asking advisers if it is possible for the US to buy Greenland, according to a report.
Trump has expressed interest in the self-governing part of Denmark—which is mostly covered in ice—asking advisors if it is possible for the US to acquire the territory, The Wall Street Journal said Thursday, citing people familiar with the discussions.
The president has been curious about the area's natural resources and geopolitical relevance, the paper reported.
Greenland is a self-governing region of Denmark, which colonized the 772,000 square-mile (2-million square kilometer) island in the 18th century, and is home to nearly 57,000 people, most of whom belong to the indigenous Inuit community.
There was no official comment from the White House, and the Danish embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to AFP's request for comment.
Some Trump advisors say acquiring Greenland, which is northeast of Canada, could be good for the US, while others called it only a "fleeting fascination" from the president, The Wall Street Journal said.
Others outside the White House say Trump's interest could be a desire to secure a legacy achievement, the paper reported, and advisers wondered about the potential for research or greater military clout for the US.
The US's northernmost military base, Thule Air Base, has been located on Greenland for decades.
But Greenland doesn't quite live up to its lush name—85 percent of the island is covered by a 1.9-mile-thick (3-kilometer) ice sheet that contains 10 percent of the world's fresh water.
The world's largest island has suffered from climate change, scientists say, becoming a giant melting icicle that threatens to submerge the world's coastal areas one day.
July saw unprecedented melting of the Greenland ice sheet, with 12 billion tons of ice flowing into the sea.
Trump, who in 2017 withdrew the US from the Paris Climate Agreement to cap global warming levels, is reportedly set to visit Copenhagen in September.
This isn't the first time the president has expressed interest in foreign properties—he has said North Korea's "great beaches" would make ideal locations for condos.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
OSLO, Norway—Covering some 3,500 kilometers (2,200 miles) over the polar ice sheets in only 76 days, an arctic fox has reached Canada after setting off from Norway in an unprecedented feat of endurance.
The journey is not only a testament to the fox's stamina but also highlights the important role ice sheets serve for the migration of Arctic wildlife and the threat global warming poses to the ecological balance.
Arnaud Tarroux, one of the researchers behind the study recording the fox's trek published by the Norwegian Polar Institute, warned that "less ice... will mean less opportunities for this type of migration."
The arctic fox was equipped with a satellite tracker in July 2017 and set off from the island of Spitsbergen in the Norwegian Svalbard archipelago, about 1,000 kilometers from the North Pole, on March 26 2018.
On June 10, 76 days after leaving Norway, the fox reached Ellesmere Island, one of Canada's northernmost communities, completing a journey of 3,506 kilometers.
"This species is even more enduring and faster than what has been observed in the past," Arnaud Tarroux told AFP Wednesday.
"It's a young female, less than a year old, therefore relatively inexperienced, literally going out to discover the world and surviving an Arctic crossing on her first attempt," he continued.
Adding to the impressive feat is that the young vixen covered the first 1,512 kilometers to reach Greenland in just 21 days.
"This is the first observation that shows in detail that an arctic fox has migrated between different continents and ecosystems in the Arctic, and one of the longest migrations ever recorded for an arctic fox in such a short period of time," the Norwegian Polar Institute noted in a statement.
The fox withstood the arid polar environments and moved at an average daily rate of 46.3 kilometers, with a daily record of 155 recorded while crossing Greenland.
Why the fox opted to leave for Canada is unclear.
"It is quite possible that it is simply a series of coincidences that led her to find herself in an area of the Canadian arctic at the right time to find enough resources to be able to settle there," Tarroux said.
The fox's current whereabouts are unknown since the tracking system stopped working in Feb. 2019.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
