glacial melt

Melting in Svalbard

September 16, 2025 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Svalbard is a Norwegian archipelago north of the mainland. It is known for its glaciers, tundra, and wildlife – especially polar bears, Arctic foxes, and reindeer. It is home to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a place to safeguard critical seeds for the world’s food supply. The location was chosen for its remoteness and perpetual deep freeze.

A recent study investigated the record glacial ice melt on the Svalbard islands in the summer of 2024, considering it to be a cautionary tale about the future of other Arctic ice masses.

The amount of ice that melted on Svalbard made it one of the most significant contributors to global sea level rise last year. An extreme and long Arctic heat wave, intensified by changing weather patterns, led to unprecedented melting. But what seemed like a once-in-1000-year event may well become normal in the future.

Most of the 2024 glacial melt occurred during six weeks of record-high temperatures. The influx of fresh water from the islands most likely had an impact on marine ecosystems in the surrounding sea, beginning at the bottom of the food chain with plankton, which are very sensitive to water temperature and salinity.

Research has linked surges of fresh water into the North Atlantic with extreme weather in Europe and possibly even North America. Of great concern is that cold fresh water flowing out of the Arctic may be contributing to the weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, which is a key ocean current that carries warm water towards northwestern Europe and greatly impacts the climate in Europe.

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Melting on the Arctic’s Svalbard Islands Shows the Climate Future Is Now

Photo, posted September 21, 2016, courtesy of Christopher Michel via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Climate change and Antarctic meteorites

May 1, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Researchers from Switzerland and Belgium have investigated the effects of the warming climate on access to meteorites in Antarctica. Meteorites are of great scientific interest because they provide unique information about the makeup of our solar system. Of all the meteorites that people have found, 62.6% of them were found in Antarctica.

Why is this? It is not because more meteorites land in Antarctica. Statistically, they can land anywhere on earth. Most end up in the ocean since the world’s oceans cover 70% of the planet.

Meteorites in Antarctica are more visible because environmental conditions are favorable for their preservation and their visibility. The arid and cold Antarctic environment helps to preserve meteorites and the lack of rocks and contrast with ice makes spotting meteorites much easier. The flow of ice sheets tends to concentrate meteorites in so-called meteorite stranding zones where the dark colored space rocks can be easily detected.

There are an estimated 300,000 to 800,000 meteorites in Antarctica. When meteorites warm up, they can transfer heat to the ice, which locally melts. Eventually, the meteorites sink beneath the surface. A recent study using satellite imagery, climate model projections, and AI predicts that for every tenth of a degree of increase in global air temperature, an average of 9,000 meteorites in Antarctica will disappear from the surface and will no longer be able to be found.

The study estimates that a quarter of Antarctic meteorites will be lost to glacial melt by 2050. If warming continues to accelerate, closer to three-quarters of the meteorites on the continent will be lost.

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Climate change threatens Antarctic meteorites

Photo, posted April 21, 2005, courtesy of Kevin Walsh via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Heatwaves And Alpine Mountain Climbing | Earth Wise

August 25, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

From June to August, there were persistent heat waves affecting parts of Europe that caused wildfires, evacuations, and heat-related deaths. Nearly 12,000 people died from heat stroke or other causes associated with the high temperatures. The highest temperature recorded during this period was 116.6 degrees F in Pinhao, Portugal on July 14th. The RAF base in Coningsby, Lincolnshire recorded a temperature over 104 degrees on July 19th, the highest ever recorded in the United Kingdom.

Among the effects of the multiple European heatwaves has been the cancellation of climbing tours up some of the most iconic peaks in the Alps, including Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn. The high temperatures and rapidly melting glaciers have made the climbing routes too dangerous. Overall, climbing cancellations occurred on about a dozen peaks, including the Jungfrau in Switzerland, which cancelled tours for the first time in a century.

In previous years, during warm summers, some of these climbing routes were closed in August, but the glaciers were already in a condition that usually only happens at the end of summer or even later.

The combination of heat and glacier melt can be treacherous. In July, 11 people were killed at Italy’s Marmolada glacier by falling ice and rock.

Glacial melt in the Alps is rapidly accelerating. The Forni Glacier, the largest valley glacier in Italy, has retreated two miles since 1860 and its area has shrunk by half. Forecasts are that it will retain only 20% of its current volume by 2050 and may disappear entirely by the end of the century. Half of the 4,000 glaciers in the Alps are expected to disappear by 2050.

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European Heat Waves Force Closure of Classic Climbing Routes in Alps

Photo, posted September 4, 2020, courtesy of Dmitry Djouce via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Accelerating Global Glacier Loss | Earth Wise

June 10, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Glaciers represent the snows of centuries compressed over time to form flowing rivers of ice. Glaciers always change, accumulating snow in the winter and losing ice to melting in the summer. But in recent times, the melting has been outpacing the accumulation.

Glaciers are a sensitive indicator of climate change. They have been melting at a high rate since the mid-20th century – regardless of altitude or latitude. But up until recently, the full extent of glacial ice loss has only been partially measured and understood.

Now, according to new research led by scientists from ETH Zurich in Switzerland and the University of Toulouse in France, nearly all the world’s glaciers are becoming thinner and losing mass. And the changes are accelerating. The study, which is the most comprehensive and accurate of its kind to date, is the first to include all the world’s glaciers – around 220,000 in total – excluding the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. The research team’s findings were recently published in the journal Nature.

Between 2000 and 2019, the world’s glaciers lost an average of more than 294 billion tons of ice per year. Between 2000 and 2004, glaciers lost an average of about 250 billion tons of ice each year. But between 2015 and 2019, ice mass loss jumped up to an average of approximately 328 billion tons annually.

Glacial melt is responsible for 21% of the observed sea level rise during this two decade time period studied.

This research is just another reminder of how we need to act urgently if we want to prevent the worst-case climate change scenario from becoming a reality.

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Global glacier retreat has accelerated

Photo, posted September 17, 2015, courtesy of Richard Whitaker via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.