Fractured Planet: Glaciers Thawing, Rivers Running Dry, Reefs Vanishing

For the thirty-sixth year in a row, glaciers lost rather than gained ice, the yearly rate of decrease at more than 58 billion tonnes and the rate of depreciation increasing from about 36 centimeters per year in 2000 to 69 centimeters per year in 2019, while up to 1,000 small Swiss glaciers vanished, the number of glaciers in U.S’s Glacier National Park falling from an estimated one hundred and fifty to fewer than 30 and most of the remaining ones having shrunk in area by two-thirds.

In the past 30 years, China lost more than 28,000 rivers, while two-thirds of the world’s longest river experienced alarming signs of shrinkage, just as the number of recorded rivers with catchment areas of over 100 square kilometers fell to just 23,000 compared with 50,000 in the 1990s, while in four days  a river that flowed for millennia vanished.

Between 2009 and 2018, the planet lost 14 percent of its coral reefs, while over 50 percent of the world’s coral reefs vanished in the last 30 years, and up to 90 percent may vanish within the next century, with the total coral reefs lost between 2009 and 2018 equivalent to about 11,700 square kilometers of coral.

Today, humanity faces the challenge of vanishing corals, vanishing glaciers, and vanishing rivers, not to speak of vanishing trees, vanishing mammals, and vanishing butterflies.

Since 1912, the Kilimanjaro mountain lost 85 percent of its famed snows, while glaciers in the Himalaya in India retreat at such a fast speed that researchers believe most central and eastern Himalayan glaciers could virtually disappear by 2035, just as the edges of Greenland’s Ice sheet shrink, and spring water now  occur nine days earlier than it did 150 years ago.

Since the 1990s, the Mekong River loses its delta at the rate of 1.1 centimeters per year, the delta now one of the lowest plains in the world, while the Nile River shrinks at the rate of three to five millimeters per year, the river receding at the shoreline by about 60 feet annually, with the Colorado River basin losing water equivalent to Lake Mead.

Between 1994 and 2006, the coral reefs in Maui experienced nearly 25 percent decrease, while 50 percent of Australia’s famous reefs died as a result of  bleaching events in 2016 and 2017, with nearly 95 percents of coral reefs in southeast Asia under threat.

The speed at which humanity faces changes in the ecosystem, as seen with Mountain Kilimanjaro, the Mekong River, and the Australian coral reefs should be a cause for concern, seen within the context of disappearance of species through climate change and other factors.

As the world remains on track to hit a 2.7 degrees Celsius (4.9 degrees Fahrenheit) threshold since pre-industrial times, a situation from climate change and other factors, the planet may lose 32 percent of its glacier mass by 2100, or 48.5 trillion tonnes of ice, as well as 68 percent of the glaciers vanishing.

As anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions alter the global hydrological cycle, an event that drives climate change, rivers may persist in experiencing lower levels across the globe, a factor that had led to rivers having dried up at the highest rate in three decades in 2023.

As rising temperatures persist, an event accelerated by climate change, the world may witness a situation where by 2055 around 99 percent of coral reefs could be under one threat or the other, while by 2100 few or no suitable habitats for the species will remain.

Increasing temperatures in the next few years, as well as anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, plus climate change should be of concern to many, because they possess the capacity of changing the narrative from “vanishing” to “vanished” natural landmarks, leaving billions of people to face the consequences.

The use of fossil fuel accelerates the pace of climate change, but when nations and individuals act quickly to reduce the dependence on the product, the fortune with rivers, glaciers, coral reefs, and all of the threatened species might experience an improvement.

What to Eat

Vegan food from Australia, Credit, Berty Justice