A third of Himalayan ice cap doomed, finds report

At least a third of the huge ice fields in Asia’s towering mountain chain are doomed to melt due to climate change, according to a landmark report, with serious consequences for almost 2 billion people.

Melting ice on Khumbu glacier in the Everest-Khumbu
region. Himalayan glaciers are a water source for
250 million people.

Even if carbon emissions are dramatically and rapidly cut and succeed in limiting global warming to 1.5C, 36% of the glaciers along in the Hindu Kush and Himalaya range will have gone by 2100. If emissions are not cut, the loss soars to two-thirds, the report found.

The glaciers are a critical water store for the 250 million people who live in the Hindu Kush-Himalaya (HKH) region, and 1.65 billion people rely on the great rivers that flow from the peaks into India, Pakistan, China and other nations.

Read the story from The Guardian by Damian Carrington - “A third of Himalayan ice cap doomed, finds report.”

Global sea level rise rate speeding up, 25 years of satellite data confirms

The rate of global sea level rise is accelerating as ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland melt, an analysis of the first 25 years of satellite data confirms.

Satellite data indicates sea levels will rise around 61 cm between now and 2100.

The study, by US scientists, has calculated the rate of global mean sea level rise is not just going up at a steady rate of 3mm a year, but has been increasing by an additional 0.08mm a year, every year since 1993.

If the rate of change continues at this pace, global mean sea levels will rise 61 centimetres between now and 2100, they report today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"That's basically double the amount you would get if you only had 3 mm a year with no acceleration," said the study's lead author Steven Nerem of the University of Colorado.

Read the ABC News story by Genelle Weule - “Global sea level rise rate speeding up, 25 years of satellite data confirms.