Mountain glaciers hold less water than previously thought, study finds

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Mountain glaciers, melting under the effects of the climate crisis, contain less water than scientists thought, according to a study published on Monday that points to risks in regions such as the Andes.

“The discovery that there is less ice is important and will have consequences for millions of people around the world”, explains one of the authors, Mathieu Morlighem, from Dartmouth College, in the United States.

Glaciers are in constant motion, collapsing under their own weight. Until now, “we didn’t know exactly how fast” they move, the study’s lead author, Romain Millan, from the Institute of Environmental Geosciences in Grenoble, France, told AFP.

With the help of hundreds of thousands of satellite images of glaciers and their modification, the researchers managed to create an atlas in which the thickness of 98% of the more than 200 thousand mountain glaciers on the planet is deduced. This excludes the largest glaciers, which are on the edge of the polar ice caps.

Worldwide, results published in Nature Geoscience show that these glaciers are thinner than previously thought.

“If all the glaciers in the mountains melted, it would mean that their contribution to sea level rise would be 20% less important” than previously thought, says Romain Millan.

The authors estimate that this potential contribution would be on the order of 26 cm.

But this is not good news, as the glaciers of the Arctic Circle already contain enough water to raise the level of the oceans by about 13 meters.

Therefore, the Andes reserves contain 27% less water than previously thought.

Instead, the impact is potentially devastating for populations that depend on glaciers for drinking or agriculture.

The impact on the La Paz basin in Bolivia will be very important for the melting of the ice, experts warn.

Scientists advising the UN on climate change warn that low-lying glaciers like those in the Alps could lose 80% of their volume by 2100.

These new data compel scientists to revise that projection, says Romain Millan.

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