Climate change could have devastating effects on vulnerable residents in the Andes mountains and the Tibetan plateau, according to researchers at The Ohio State University who have been studying glaciers in those areas for decades.
Their findings—that glaciers in both parts of the world are melting more rapidly than at any point in the last 10,000 years—mean the water supply in parts of Peru, Pakistan, China, India and Nepal will decline, soon.
“Supply is down. But demand is up because of growing populations,” said Lonnie Thompson, a climate scientist at Ohio State’s Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center. “By 2100, the best case scenario is that half of the ice will disappear. Worst-case scenario: two-thirds of it will. And you’ve got all those people depending on the glacier for water.”
Thompson, a distinguished university professor of earth sciences at Ohio State, presented the team’s findings on Dec. 14 at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Washington, D.C.
Read more at Ohio State University
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