Scientists in a new study has warned that the 40% of world’s glaciers have already doomed and even immediate halt in the rising tempratures could not save them.
According to CNN, reserchers have estimates that glaciers will eventually lose 39% of their mass relative to 2020, a trend that is already irreversible no matter what comes next and will likely contribute a 113-millimeter increase to global sea level rise.
The loss rises to 76% if the world continues to pursue its current climate policies, which will likely fail to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to a paper published in the journal Science.
Lilian Schuster, a researcher at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, who co-led the study said that even though the study offers a bleak prognosis for the world’s glaciers, its authors are trying “to give a message of hope.”
“With the study, we want to show that with every tenth of a degree less of global warming, we can preserve glacier ice,” she told CNN.
Nearly 200 nations pledged to work together in the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global warming.
Nations committed to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and, if possible, below 1.5 degrees. Each country is responsible for developing its own plans for achieving those goals.
