The Briksdal Glacier: Not at its most impressive. Just look away.
Courtesy xdmagAcross the globe, glaciers are suffering the humiliation of being seen in a state of exacerbated shrinkage.

Having gone so long without serious scrutiny as to their size, the bedroom door has been thrown open on the glaciers of the world, leaving them flailing to cover up what little is left of theirs to cover up.

“What did you expect?” Points out one glacier. “We’re cold. that’s what happens.”

Climatologists would disagree, however, on the cause of the shrinkage, if not the shrinkage itself, viewing the phenomenon as a key indicator of a warming climate. Average glacial shrinkage, it is reported, has risen from about 30 centimeters a year between 1980 and 1999, to 1.5 meters in 2006.

The glaciers, as they retreat like “frightened turtles” into their mountain refuges, are causing alarm not only as indicators of global climate change, but for their own diminishing potential to supply fresh water for “drinking, agriculture, industry, and power generation.”

Glaciers are believed to have started shrinking globally around 1850, although the rate of shrinkage looks to have increased dramatically in the early 80’s, and Dr. Wilfried Haeberli, director of the World Glacier Monitoring service, says that “the latest figures are part of what appears to be an accelerating trend with no apparent end in sight.”

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