Scientists have predicted peak deglaciation, a period when thousands of individual mountain glaciers will completely disappear each year, and have shown how the level of warming affects the scale of loss.
Global glaciation is decreasing, but researchers suggest looking beyond area and mass ice, but on the number of glaciers that disappear as separate objects of accounting. The authors of an article in the journal Nature Climate Change analyzed more than 200 thousand glaciers from the global registry Randolph Glacier Inventory v6.0 and compared the results of three global models (GloGEM, OGGM and PyGEM).
Researchers estimate that with warming of about 1.5°C, the peak of extinction could occur in the 2040s and amount to about 2,000 glaciers per year. Under the 4.0°C scenario, the maximum shifts to the mid-2050s and to 4,000 glaciers per year.
In calculations, a glacier was considered to have disappeared if its area fell below 0.01 km² or its volume below 1% of the original. The authors also note that satellites may be less able to see small and debris-covered ice masses, which affects the accuracy of the calculations. The difference between regions is explained, among other things, by the proportion of small glaciers: where there are more of them, the global melting peak occurs earlier and looks sharper.
Thus, in the Caucasus, Northern Asia and Central Europe, ice masses may disappear in the next 20 years. In regions where large glaciers predominate (Greenland, the Arctic, Antarctic), the disappearance of the ice cover will occur later. In general, the timing of the complete disappearance of objects will depend on the rate of global warming.
Source: Nature Climate Change
