January 5, 2023

expert reaction to a new approach for predicting how glaciers respond to climate change

A study published in Science provides a new approach for predicting how glaciers respond to climate change.

The following comments were provided by our colleagues at SMC Spain:

Prof Antonio Ruiz de Elvira, Professor of Applied Physics at the University of Alcalá, says:

“The press release is correct, but it fails to consider the possibility of the total lack of climate change mitigation, which is foreseeable from now on despite the claims of the various COPs.

“The study is very good and its conclusions are supported by the best available data. However, the consequences for humanity are much greater if Greenland’s glaciers slide into the sea, and that is not covered in this study.

“All existing evidence is consistent with the results of this paper, and the authors have taken into account the possible limitations of their models and calculations.

“The study makes much of the earlier partial data more concrete. In California, the water needed to sustain agriculture comes from glaciers directly from the end of July. In Spain the disappearance of the Sierra Nevada glaciers means an almost complete reduction in water availability there from that time onwards, and the same applies to the glaciers in the Pyrenees. In India and China they depend crucially on the Himalayan glaciers”.

‘Global glacier change in the 21st century: Every increase in temperature matters’ by David Rounce et al. was published in Science at 19:00 UK time on Wednesday 5^th January.

DOI: https://science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abo1324

Declared interests

Prof Antonio Ruiz de Elvira: “No conflicts of interest.”