Nearly Half the Glaciers at World Heritage Sites May Disappear by 2100, Study Says

See These Glaciers While You Still Can

Unless greenhouse gas emissions are drastically lowered, nearly half of all glaciers at World Heritage sites may disappear by the turn of the century, a new study says.

Touted as the first-ever global study of UNESCO World Heritage glaciers, the research published Monday in the American Geophysical Union's journal Earth's Future found that glaciers at 21 of the 46 World Heritage sites will be ice free by 2100, depending ultimately on the whether emissions are curbed.

"Losing these iconic glaciers would be a tragedy and have major consequences for the availability of water resources, sea level rise and weather patterns," Peter Shadie, Director of the International Union for Conservation (ICUN) of Nature's World Heritage Program, said in a press release.

"This unprecedented decline could also jeopardize the listing of the sites in question on the World Heritage list. States must reinforce their commitments to combat climate change and step up efforts to preserve these glaciers for future generations," he added.

Researchers from AGU and ICUN combined data from a global glacier inventory, a review of existing literature and computer modeling to analyze the current state of the glaciers. They also looked at how the glaciers have evolved and analyzed how the glaciers will tolerate a warming climate in the coming decades.

Even if emissions are significantly reduced, the researchers concluded that eight of the 46 World Heritage sites will become ice-free by 2100.

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The World Heritage sites expected to be impacted in North America include Waterton Glacier International Peace Park, in Alberta, Canada; seven parks that make up the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks in Alberta and British Columbia, Canada; and Olympic National Park, in the state of Washington. All of these sites can expect to lose more than 70 percent of their current glacier ice by 2100, even if carbon emissions are "drastically lowered."

The authors pointed to the key role glaciers play in ecosystems and societies.

"To preserve these iconic glaciers found in World Heritage sites, we urgently need to see significant cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. This is the only way of avoiding long-lasting and irreversible glacier decline and the related major natural, social, economic and migratory cascading consequences," lead author Jean-Baptiste Bosson, scientific advisor for the IUCN's World Heritage program, said in the press release.

"The study on glacier decline further emphasizes the need for individual and collective actions to achieve the mitigation and adaptation aspirations of the Paris Agreement on climate change," he added.

Climate change has prompted the World Heritage organization to double the number of sites threatened by climate change since 2014.