The Andean glaciers have not been this bad for 12,000 years, the journal says. Science. Although it was known that they had been melting for several decades, the extent of the damage had not been measured until this work.
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Less known than those of the Himalayas or even those of the Alps, there are the glaciers tropical. The vast majority of them are in the Andes. We knew they were threatened by melting. We now learn that their retreat has reached a level not seen for 12,000 years.
” The observations that we are currently making on glaciers generally concern the last 20 to 30 years. But the question that we are asking is that there is an extremely marked melting, but have we seen similar things in the past? ? The short observation period does not allow us to answer this question. We are therefore obliged to study the evolution of glaciers over the long term. And we show that in the Andes, for the first time in the world, the tropical Andean glaciers are smaller. This is fundamental. We have exceeded a threshold “, explains Vincent Jomelli, CNRS research director who participated in this research.
The date of 12,000 years is indeed important because it covers the duration of what is called the Holocene, the current geological epoch, characterized by its temperate climate.
Conditions from which the Andean glaciers now seem to have emerged due to global warming. A harbinger of what is to come for other glaciers on the planet ” warn the authors of the study.
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