Citation
(2007), "Melting ice - a hot topic? How people are influenced by ice and snow losses linked to climate change", Management of Environmental Quality, Vol. 18 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/meq.2007.08318fag.001
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2007, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Melting ice - a hot topic? How people are influenced by ice and snow losses linked to climate change
The futures of hundreds of millions of people across the world will be affected by declines in snow cover, sea ice, glaciers, permafrost and lake ice a new and unique report available on the net.
Impacts are likely to include significant changes in the availability of water supplies for drinking and agriculture, rising sea levels affecting low lying coasts and islands and an increase in hazards such as subsidence of currently frozen land.
An estimated 40 per cent of the world’s population could be affected by loss of snow and glaciers on the mountains of Asia says the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) in the “Global outlook for ice and snow”. Similar challenges are facing countries, communities, farmers and power generators in the Alps to the Andes and the Pyrenees, says the report.
Melting ice and snow are also likely to increase hazards including avalanches and floods from the build up of potentially unstable glacial lakes. These can burst their ice and soil dams sending walls of water down valleys at speeds close to that of a modern anti-tank missile.
Rising temperatures and the thawing of frozen land or “permafrost” is triggering the expansion of existing – and the emergence of new – water bodies in places like Siberia.
These are among the “feedbacks” which some experts fear could trigger even faster or more abrupt climatic changes with even wider-ranging impacts on people, economies and wildlife.
The “Global outlook for ice and snow” is, along with downloadable pictures, available at www.unep.org/geo/geo_ice