Half of World’s Glaciers to Disappear with 1.5C of Global Warming

January 23, 2023

2022 Wall Scholar Pasang Yangjee Sherpa (Asian Studies/Critical Indigenous Studies) was interviewed by Carbon Brief about the sobering findings in “the most comprehensive and rigorous analysis of future glacier trends to date”.

The research study, published in Science, is the first to examine the likely fate of all 215,000 of the world’s glaciers using high-resolution modelling.

If global warming reaches 4C, 83% of the world’s glaciers could disappear, the study adds.

As well as providing most of the world’s freshwater, glaciers support unique ecosystems and are considered sacred in many parts of the world. 

“Significant loss of glaciers means that we are not only witnessing a change in landscape or a loss of natural resources, it means that we are actively complicit in robbing the future from our children. What are mountain peoples without the mountains as we know them?”

Wall Scholar Pasang Yangjee Sherpa

Read the article in its entirety on the Carbon Brief website.