The rest can be put down to natural factors such as variable radiation from the sun and volcanic activity. But it’s a sort of intrinsic loss of beautiful things in nature that we will start to notice. There’s other things besides climate change, but climate change tends to exacerbate all of those other factors. Glaciers gain mass through snowfall and lose mass through melting and sublimation (when water evaporates directly from solid ice). Forty percent of its productive land is projected to be lost with sea-level rise by mid-century. Himalayan glaciers melting because of high-altitude dust. There is still some uncertainty about the full volume of glaciers and ice caps on Earth, but if all of them were to melt, global sea level would rise approximately 70 meters (approximately 230 feet), flooding every coastal city on the planet.Learn more: Today, the Arctic is warming twice as fast as anywhere on earth, and the sea ice there is declining by more than 10% every 10 years. And that leads to the potential for a greater forest fire risk. Dr. David Hik [00:09:04]: So, sea-level rise is a function of glaciers melting, and of the thermal expansion of water. So, we really need to look at the commitments that the international community has made and find actions that will reduce those emissions–and try to stay within that safe space, where we won’t see a loss of glaciers, or we won’t see a loss of biodiversity or natural ecosystems. To see if a glacier is growing or shrinking, glaciologists check the condition of snow and ice at several locations on the glacier at the end of the melt season. Coursera [00:07:10]: Can you talk through some of those ideas that you see as a good solution and way to drastically reduce carbon emissions so that we can stop this rise of the climate, which results in the melting of glaciers? We’ll start to notice that there’s species of fishes that have disappeared completely, from coral reefs as they disappear. And that has huge impacts on water that feeds the largest rivers in the world. Because this is happening, X, Y, and Z are also going to happen?. My favorite species that I’ve been studying for many years are rock rabbits, or pikas, that live in boulder fields–high, high in the mountains–and they’ve been around for 40 million years. Dr. Sarah Das from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution explores this phenomenon first hand in Greenland, where she studies how the melted ice travels through glaciers and out to the sea. The Antarctic ice shelf is also losing mass. Many of them, the traditional homes of First Nation People in Northwestern Canada. If we wait for things to fully break down, that is rather late to start to try to restore that damage. But we also talk about climate, and we talk about the role of glaciers as water towers. The Potsdam study suggests the picture could be even more serious. By Bob Berwyn, InsideClimate News Oct 7, 2019 Many people know it, probably from the Klondike Gold Rush and the sort of colorful history of what happened at the end of the 1800s. #environmental sustainability #nature #climate change. And we see the projections are at the current rate that greenhouse gases are increasing in the atmosphere. Human activity is playing an increasing role in the melting of glaciers, Austrian and Canadian scientists have found. They probably have survived warm periods and cold periods and Refugio in mountains, and they’re still there. Coursera [00:20:06]: To keep learning from Dr. David Hik, go to Coursera.org today to enroll for free in his course Mountains 101. There’s a variety of species that I think I’m concerned about, but I think a lot of species will find ways to surprise us. As glaciers and the giant ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica melt, they add more water into the ocean, which causes sea level to rise. But that sort of range of variation is going to be limited to the environmental variation that has been typical of, say, the last 10,000 years or 100,000 years. So, every part of the world will be affected, and as a result, that just emphasizes to me that this is a global issue that needs a global response. Environment + Climate. So, we talk about the geological origins of mountains, the history of these places. Another big disturbance in the 1990s and early part of the 2000s was a huge outbreak of spruce bark beetle. ), and the two have been interacting for the entirety of human history. The scientists check snow levels against stakes they’ve inserte… Below, listen to the conversation or read the transcript, and hear Dr. David Hik’s thoughts on: Enroll for free in his course Mountains 101 on Coursera. For more than 30 years, Dr. Hik has been studying mountain regions and has seen firsthand the impact climate change has had. Recent years have seen hundreds of billions of tonnes of ice lost - and a rough guide to the effect on sea level is that 362 billion tonnes of melt raises the average ocean level by a millimetre. Melting glaciers may affect ocean currents Date: June 1, 2011 Source: University of Sheffield Summary: Scientists have used a computer climate … The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which collates the results of hundreds of studies, estimates sea levels will rise between 26 and 82cm this century. “Without anthropogenic forcing, the glaciers would stabilise at slightly higher elevations, and eventually stop losing mass. They’ll simply shift their current range into an environment that’s more suitable in a different place. It’s a wild mountain area that includes Canada’s largest mountain peak glaciers and glacier-fed lakes. Some areas will be more vulnerable than others. Melting glaciers may affect ocean currents Date: June 1, 2011 Source: University of Sheffield Summary: Scientists have used a computer climate … And a lot of the work that I’ve been focusing on looks at species interactions so herbivores that eat plants or pollinators that rely on a variety of different species. This will have a major impact on the hundreds of millions of people living on low-lying land in Bangladesh. ... Then, over thousands of years, those glaciers began to melt and dribble away. This in turn affects the availability of freshwater for human use. I’d love to hear, from your perspective, how has the landscape in the Yukon, where you’ve done a lot of research over years and decades, changed from when you first visited it? Those are important changes. We will find out how this data can help us understand the effect of melting glaciers on Canada’s coastline, as well as how and what we could do to stop or slow it down. Temperature rise is not uniform, with land masses and the Arctic region warming faster than the global average. So, the cryosphere is the frozen part of the natural environment. The melting of this ice can have major negative consequences for countless people across Earth's surface. And we talk about the natural hazards that occur as gravity moves rocks and mountain and water and snow down to the bottom. Climate change is affecting the world now, and one of the most obvious ways is by melting glaciers. New research shows that as ice disappears, overall evaporation speeds up. ; Use mathematics to analyze and interpret glacial and sea-level data. ___________________________________________________________________________. Dr. David Hik [00:10:54]: Yeah. Climate change causes a variety of physical impacts on the climate system.The physical impacts of climate change foremost include globally rising temperatures of the lower atmosphere, the land, and oceans. The glaciers are thinning by a meter a year. As water gets warmer, it occupies a larger volume. Read More. How will changes in temperature affect glaciers and ice sheets? Australia is developing a 20-year strategic plan for Antarctica. And we set a limit of 90 percent of the total population that would exist in a pristine version of that habitat that’s sort of free of disturbance and human activity. We’ll start to eventually notice that there aren’t any rhinoceros or elephants or large cats in parts of Africa. In Yukon, we’ve been able to do things like look at changes in the tree line or the shrub line. And on that front, how fast exactly are glaciers, ice, snow–that cryosphere that you mentioned– how fast are they melting? Coursera [00:08:55]: Any cities or countries that would be most vulnerable to climate change and specifically would be most affected by things like sea-level changes? Dust, climate change and air pollution are triple threat to water source for a billion people. Coursera [00:08:16]: And as you’re having these conversations and thinking about these issues often, do you personally hold out hope that these large changes and drastic things that need to happen to slow the rate of climate change will happen in time before that point of no return? For more than 30 years, Dr. Hik has been studying plant and animal populations and how they interact with each other as well as their environment. And we see that in many parts of the world. In an interconnected world, we may all suffer impacts caused by melting ice elsewhere, and settlements may be affected by sea level rises in diverse and different ways. Dr. David Hik is an Associate Dean of the Faculty of Science as well as a Professor of Biological Sciences at Simon Fraser University. Melting mountain glaciers are also predictable and their contribution can be estimated roughly. Coursera [00:06:24]: Is there anything we can do to slow the melting of the glaciers or prevent that from happening? The less ice there is, the less water there is for human use, whether it's for drinking, hydroelectric generation, or irrigation. And all of that water is flowing out through the rivers and the lakes and ultimately into the oceans. As people continue to pump greenhouse gases into the air from burning fossil fuels, this trend is set to continue, Marzeion said. These and a variety of other questions all are related to what's going on in the coldest areas of our planet. And the worrying thing is that 50 percent of the Earth’s surface now has dropped below that 90 percent threshold. But if you were someone who lived in the area, these would all be changes that you couldn’t help but notice either. By Daniel Strain Oct. 6, 2011 , 2:00 PM. Recently, the temperature in the Arctic appears to have hit a new continental high, close to 70 degrees. There’s other species that have been around for a very long time. Glaciers and ice sheets contain about 70 percent of the Earth's freshwater and ongoing melting is a major contributor to sea level rise. The big uncertainty is linked to ice sheets in Greenland and the Antarctica. MELTING GLACIERS Glaciers, the great guardians of the stability of the planet's climate. Since the early twentieth century, with few exceptions, glaciers around the world have been retreating at unprecedented rates. Chown urged Australia to reverse a decline in its scientific presence in the region. “[West Antarctic Ice Sheet] melting will affect everyone,” says Steig. Scientific studies show increasing human impact on glaciers; Antarctic ice melt faster than thought, Huayna Potosa­, Bolivia, is home to one of the fastest melting glaciers in the world. Ice lost from the continent surrounding the South Pole is responsible for less than 10% of sea level rise at present. Now, that may not seem like very much, but it’s also visible to the eye. So, we have ways of using biodiversity as a measure for how well a particular place on the planet is doing in the face of all of these other disturbances, of which climate changes is one of the most worrying. For example, the melting of glaciers in the Himalayas will affect the drinking supplies of the millions of people who rely on meltwater rivers. © 2020 Coursera Inc. All rights reserved. They are set to sign a climate treaty in Paris next year. Robert Bindschadler from NASA, co-author of the Antarctic study, said: “Billions of dollars, euros, yuan etc. So, in a sense, when glaciers melt, that creates new ground that can be occupied by plants and ultimately by animals. Coursera [00:04:46]: Yeah. Small populations, probably at greater risk. But how will that impact the world’s ecosystems? So, those are just some of the really dramatic examples that we’ve seen in the glaciers. They experience these changes firsthand. Glaciers Are Melting Around The World, And Humans Are Largely to Blame. Glaciers that terminate in a lake or the ocean also lose mass through iceberg calving. Melting glaciers caused by global warming will lead to an increasing number of earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions, according to … In Yukon, we’ve been able to show that shrubs–little willows and birch shrubs– are advancing upslope and that their density is increasing at about 5 percent per hector per decade. Dr. David Hik [00:09:04]: So, sea-level rise is a function of glaciers melting, and of the thermal expansion of water. Or do you look at it as a domino effect? Melting of glaciers caused by human activity has soared in the past 20 years, a study has shown. Mountain caribou in the Rocky Mountains have been in decline for a long period of time, partly from habitat loss or habitat change, partly from predation by wolves and cougars and other predators. The initial effect on individuals and on the world will be relatively small, but the cumulative effect of that overtime is going to be huge. And I’ve been studying those environments for all of that time. And the oceans are getting warmer. Greenland's melting ice may affect everyone's future NASA scientists are trying to understand how this region is responding to climate change—and how that will influence sea levels around the world. And I guess the short story is really that we’re still trying to understand and be able to better predict which species will be the winners in those scenarios and which we should be very concerned about and are at greatest risk of extinction. Scientists can now evaluate how much an individual glacier or ice sheet melting will contribute to rising sea levels in port cities around the world, according to new research.. latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, published in the journal Nature last week. In addition, when sea levels rise, people living close to sea level will have their homes flooded. Analyze and interpret data to explain the relationship between the growth and melting of ice sheets and changes in sea level. learn more about the topics he can speak to. Effects of glaciers melting on the environment and humans; How fast glaciers are melting; Why glaciers are important ; What cities and countries will be most vulnerable to sea-level rise; How to prevent glaciers from melting; How does climate change affect plants and animals; How do animals adapt to climate change; What happens to animals that cannot adapt to the changes in their … But, it is a landscape that I first visited in 1988. Glaciers worldwide are melting due to human factors, such as greenhouse-gas emissions and aerosols, a new study suggests. “Human interference with the forcing of the climate system is preventing glaciers from reaching such a new equilibrium anytime soon.”. Dr. David Hik [00:02:55]: That’s right. Things like moratoriums on developing Arctic oil and gas–or both stopping deforestation and active efforts to plant trees and capture carbon in natural ecosystems, forests, wetlands. Since industrial times, atmospheric CO2 has increased from about 280 parts per million up to where it is right now, about 415 parts per million. Climate scientists have said for decades that human-caused global warming causes ice to melt that in turn will raise global sea levels, and in recent years scientists have made increasingly precise projections … And while we might zoom in on one species, like a pica, those individuals live within a much larger context. A recent study he did found that 80 percent of the glaciers in Alberta and British Columbia could melt in the next 50 years. The predators that are there would probably switch to other prey, to deer or moose or sheep or something like that. Mountain glaciers around the world, from the Himalayas to the Andes, are shrinking in the face of climate change—and that could pose a major threat to water resources for nearby communities. We have studies on how they are losing ice, but projections come with high levels of uncertainty.’ According to Vaughan, both the very lowest and very highest estimates of sea level rise are extremely unlikely. ... “Glaciers without human impacts would still be melting,” but much at a much slower rate, he said. Thwaites Glacier, also known as the "doomsday glacier", is reported to be melting quicker than previously thought - scientists are now trying to find out why. Learning Outcomes. The melting of ice sheets has powerful implications for the millions of people who depend on glacial melt for drinking water and the millions of people who will be displaced by the sea level rise occurring as a direct result of the melting. Why does it matter? In the last 20 years of that period, the human contribution increased to 69%. And we work in a social environment, and we work with a community that lives in those places and experience firsthand the changes that occur as a result of warming or other disturbances. The retreat of glaciers since 1850 affects the availability of fresh water for irrigation and domestic use, mountain recreation, animals and plants that depend on glacier-melt, and, in the longer term, the level of the oceans. And that’s led globally to an increase of 1.1 degrees. This will lead to a rise in sea level which will have a direct impact on those living in low lying areas. Coursera [00:15:29]: Yeah, and I’m intrigued by the idea that we brought up earlier about how interconnected everything is. And 20 million people that live in the coastal areas of Bangladesh are already affected by salinity and drinking water and contamination of groundwater. “An opportunity exists now to grow that leadership to the benefit of Australians and to society globally.”, Read more on: Nature | Antarctica | Featured | IPCC | Sea Level Rise Nature, More than carbon: securing clean water by protecting forests, Join an online edit-a-thon to contribute climate change information to Wikipedia, Leadership and funding at centre of climate policy study in sub-Saharan Africa, Webinar: How to contribute climate change information to Wikipedia, Woman entrepreneurs fight Covid slump with new business ideas, Brazil must reverse deforestation trends before EU finalises Mercosur trade deal, UK scrambles to decide first post-Brexit climate pledge to the Paris Agreement, Rich countries, remember your $100bn climate commitment to the world’s poor, The damage of four lost years – Climate Weekly, Youth activists demand damages for climate victims at virtual ‘mock Cop26’. This indicator examines the balance between snow accumulation and melting in glaciers, and it describes how glaciers in the United States and around the world have changed over time. Coursera [00:15:21]: And when you’re thinking about what animals and plants you’re most concerned about as the planet warms, what are the ones on top of your list? Dr. David Hik [00:06:31]: Well, it does. If I took you there ten years ago, and I took you there this year, one of the very first things you’d notice when you looked up at those hillsides is that the treeline and the shrubs seem more dense, and they’re moving upslope. Human influence is now the strongest driver of glacier melting, which has … Melting glaciers don’t just have massive implications for humans. Dr. David Hik [00:07:24] : Well, I think the increase in alternative energy sources–so solar, wind, geothermal–those are being implemented much more rapidly than was initially predicted and could certainly replace a large part of the fossil fuel consumption. In this section you will find materials that support the implementation of EarthComm, Section 5: How Do Glaciers Affect Sea Level?.. Often, we look at individual species, but species exist within a larger community. So, people often sort of think the options that species have as to move, adapt, or perish. One of the most disruptive effects of climate change, glacier retreat leads to rising sea levels, landslides and unpredictable availability of water downstream. And so, lake levels dropped by two meters, and the color of the lake changed. If temperatures keep rising, glaciers will continue melting, and some could disappear completely. “This is a big range – which is exactly why we call it a risk,” said lead author Anders Levermann. Half of humanity relies on water that flows out of mountains either from snow or glaciers, into the lowlands. The researchers used computer simulations of the climate to model glacier evolution and checked their results against real world observations. While the melting of an iceberg already in the ocean will not dramatically contribute to How do melting sea ice and glaciers affect weather patterns? Just because water in an ice cap or glacier is not moving does not mean that it does not have a direct effect on other aspects of the water cycle and the weather. Human activity is playing an increasing role in the melting of glaciers, Austrian and Canadian scientists have found. Much of Earth's fresh water is locked away in glaciers and ice sheets, mostly in Antarctica. “Science needs to be clear about the uncertainty, so that decision makers at the coast and in coastal megacities like Shanghai or New York can consider the potential implications in their planning processes.”. And the oceans are getting warmer. And the feedback that then has on global temperatures is equilibrating somewhere above 450, 550 parts per million, which could lead to warming of two and a half degrees by the end of this century. Dr. David Hik [00:16:06]: So, biodiversity is a term that we use to generally describe the number of species that live in a particular area, and once we decide what species live in a place, that becomes our inventory of the health of a particular environment. Hundreds of millions of people live in low lying coastal regions, which are threatened by rising seas. Iceland's glacier Breiðamerkurjökull is melting. A study published in the journal Science has found between 1851 and 2010, humans were responsible for only around a quarter of the global loss of glacier mass. Because physical geography connects different places together, the melting of glaciers in distant places can impact on people living in the UK in varied ways. And local people stand to lose more than some even know. While the study is a step forward in understanding Antarctica, the researchers said there is room to improve data and modelling of the physical interactions between ice and ocean. “No one can predict the magnitude or even the direction of change,” says scientist Alfonso Rivera. I mean, the bottom line is we don’t know how to reconstruct ice sheets or Arctic sea ice or rain forest or coral reefs–or all of the other life support systems on Earth that are a result of natural biodiversity and ecosystems. Melting Glaciers Are Wreaking Havoc on Earth’s Crust Sea levels are dropping, earthquakes and volcanoes are waking up, and even the earth’s axis is moving—all because of melting ice And that, of course, means that the species that live at the tops of the mountains, they run out of room. Want our celebrated digest of weekly news straight to your inbox? One of the most disruptive effects of climate change, glacier retreat leads to rising sea levels, landslides and unpredictable availability of water downstream. “Typically, it takes glaciers decades or centuries to adjust to climate changes,” says study co-author Ben Marzeion, a climate researcher at the University of Innsbruck. Coursera [00:03:44]: Yeah, It’s hard to talk about some of these issues without talking about all of the ways that they’re interconnected with the different ecosystems around. Today, we’re talking with him in more detail about the impact climate change will have on our environment, how that will impact animal, plant, and human life, and the importance of biodiversity overall. So, the forest there is predominantly white spruce, and the bark beetle killed about 350,000 hectors of the forest in that part the Yukon–and left all of these standing dead trees. But our concern right now is that the rate of change in the climate system– the change in temperature, change in snow change in precipitation–is occurring so quickly that they can’t adapt quickly enough. Iceland’s glaciers have always gone through the annual cycle of winter accumulation—when snowfall adds new ice to the glacier—and summer ablation, when the rate of melt exceeds the production of new ice. Figure 1. And I do two lessons on mountain biodiversity, focused on plants and the animals, and then we talk about the future of mountains and what some of the consequences of changes will be and what some of the options are for trying to preserve these unique places as well. There’s no sort of easy way to tell which individuals are going to be at greatest risk. So, one of the fairly universal responses to warming that we observe is a shift, an upward shift, in the limit of treeline, the altitudinal limit of treeline and shrub line and Tundra. Emergency Preparedness: How Much Food & Water Per Person, Prof. Aptheker on Activism, Suffrage & Intersectional Feminism, Education in America: History, Purpose, Reform, and Access, Effects of glaciers melting on the environment and humans, What cities and countries will be most vulnerable to sea-level rise, How does climate change affect plants and animals, What happens to animals that cannot adapt to the changes in their environment, What is biodiversity and why it’s important. 3 Minute Read. The earth's glaciers are melting much faster than scientists thought. Scientists had known that melting glaciers contribute to sea-level rise, but the new study takes a comprehensive look at how much and how quickly they're melting. Perhaps the most talked-about issue and the one of greatest concern is the potential rising of waterways affected by melting glaciers. And in a number of places, they’re down to sort of the last five or six individuals, so they’re functionally extinct. Because glaciers are so sensitive to temperature fluctuations accompanying climate change, direct glacier observation may help answer these questions. Climate change is affecting the world now, and one of the most obvious ways is by melting glaciers.This month, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Earth Observatory published satellite-based images showing how glaciers in two parts of the world, Antarctica and Asia, have responded to warmer average temperatures. So, for example, about 20 percent of the surface area of those glaciers has been lost in the last 50 years, and it’s highly visible. What does the melting of glaciers mean to drinking water-its availability and its safety? The big ice sheets in Greenland or in the Antarctic are a little more stable, but mountain glaciers around the world, the mid-latitude glaciers–say in Europe or North America or the Himalaya–they’ve been melting quite rapidly. They studied all glaciers outside Antarctica, using data from the Randolph Glacier Inventory. Do you see, from your own experience and work in the Yukon, animal species adapting like this, that you’ve seen firsthand? It’s snow, it’s ice, and it’s permafrost or frozen ground. That’s leading to continued melting of glaciers in the Arctic and around the world. “There also needs to be enhanced investment in science in the region, better environmental stewardship, and more communication around the significance of the region to the public.”. The melting of glaciers and loss of snow has a cascading effect for ecosystems, agriculture and billions of people downstream. Scientists Can Now Tell How Much Glaciers Melting Will Affect Specific Cities. Does it all come back to reducing carbon emissions? How does human activity affect climate? But in many ways, the biggest changes are the things that you see happening right in front of you, year after year as you return. We will find out how this data can help us understand the effect of melting glaciers on Canada’s coastline, as well as how and what we could do to stop or slow it down. “The effects will be global, because sea level will rise globally.” Continue Reading When snow and ice and frozen ground either thaws or melts– when it undergoes a phase change from being a solid to a liquid–those effects are dramatic. We’re moving now into a climate state with warming that is being realized and predicted that is outside of the last 5 million years of Earth history. I don’t think people would notice a change in the ecosystem if caribou were lost from mountain environments. Human activities are at the root of this phenomenon. “One thing we do know, there is increased flow from snow and ice melt in the spring, so recharge of groundwater in aquifers throughout the country will likely occur earlier as a result of earlier snow melt.” Lead author Steven Chown, a professor at Monash University, said: “In order to address these scientific areas, researchers and governments must work together, and we must have greater international collaboration. Photograph by Jan Michael Hosan, fotogloria/LUZ/Redux. Melting glaciers have big carbon impact, study shows by Florida State University Scientists have done field work in Tibet and Alaska, among other places as part of this study. And I think that’s the risk that we’re trying to mitigate is how much of a decline in species can we see in a particular place without losing the integrity of that system as a whole? Much of Earth's fresh water is locked away in glaciers and ice sheets, mostly in Antarctica. Meanwhile, a separate study found ice discharge from the Antarctica could raise sea levels by up to 37cm this century, more than previously thought. Glaciers’ delayed response to climate warming means that they will keep on melting no matter what actions humans take today to curb global climate change. Just recently, a study came out that modern plankton look so different than they did historically. Coursera [00:12:03]: So, when we talk through adapting versus going extinct, are those types of plants and animals–where they’re in a more vulnerable ecosystem, or there’s really just not a place for them to relocate and adapt– are those the ones that you think will be more likely to go extinct versus adapt? Specifically, since the industrial revolution, carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions have raised temperatures, even higher in the poles, and as a result, glaciers are rapidly melting, calving off into the sea and retreating on land. Or if you’re a member of the press, set up an interview with Dr. David Hik or learn more about the topics he can speak to. Check out the effects of melting glaciers … But we see the same thing happening in the forest and in the Alpine–and if you look a little more closely to some of the plants and animals that are living in those environments as well. The melting of the glaciers, a phenomenon that intensified in the 20 th century, is leaving our planet iceless. And that leads to more health problems, like an increase in diarrhea outbreaks. Melting Glaciers Mean Double Trouble for Water Supplies. But, conservation of energy will be important as well. Today, the main reason glaciers have begun to melt is because of human activity. They probably can stabilize if the global temperature increases around 1.5 degrees, but at two degrees, we see these glaciers disappear almost entirely by the end of the century. Much of his work has been in mountain regions, specifically the Yukon. So, that’s outside of the entire time that our genus has been on the planet, and for many other species, while they might’ve been around for a long period of time, they’ve slowly–over the last millions or hundreds of thousands of years–adapted to a set of conditions that are typical of what we see now. So, for a species that’s adapted to a certain temperature, maybe they just have to move around the other side of the boulder and sort of track their preferred climate. They’re threatening every species of wildlife imaginable, forcing them to relocate as their habitats become unlivable. The five warmest years in the ocean in the last 70 years have been 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, and 2015. That it’s possible to think about how we emerge from this emergency in a way that benefits humanity, all species, and we can live within the planetary boundaries of the resources that we have on Earth. In an article published in the journal Nature last week, 75 scientists and policymakers from 22 countries set out their priorities for Antarctic research. That means the surface is melting, and they’re getting thinner and smaller. The latest results from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, in the Netherlands, show this could be happening faster than previously thought. “But pulling together all the evidence it seems that Antarctica could become the dominant cause of sea level rise much sooner.”. So, for example, that decrease in the lake level: that affects how people are able to go fishing, or in winter, to travel across the ice safely to trap lines. And as always, thanks for listening and happy learning. The biggest and most notable impact of these glaciers melting is in the rise of sea level. Coursera [00:10:24]: And as we’re talking about ways that we as humans can adapt, I know we’re already starting to see how the world around us is already adapting plants, animals, et cetera.