The Left Aktru glacier in Altai, which is one of the main markers of global warming in Russia, was melting twice as fast in 2020. This was reported by geologists of Tomsk State University.
During this time, the glacier lost up to 10 m in height over the entire area of more than 5 square meters. km. “2019 was a warm year, but this year the rate of weight loss has more than doubled,” – quotes on Friday, January 22, TASS, the head of the laboratory of glacioclimatology of the university, Alexander Erofeev.
Glacier melt data is transmitted to the World Glacier Monitoring Service (Zurich, Switzerland). Before the start of its monitoring, there were only two glaciers in Russia with a continuous series of measurements, both were in the Caucasus.
The glacier was melting faster due to rising temperatures, one of the most significant in more than 60 years of observation. Compared to the pre-industrial period, the air temperature in 2020 has already increased by 1.2 degrees Celsius. The data was transferred to the European colleagues in Zurich.
The Aktru Glacier was the first in all of Central Asia to respond to climate change. In the future, these processes can be observed everywhere, which threatens with an increase in the number of emergencies.
On the eve of the scientific director of the Hydrometeorological Center of Russia, Roman Vilfand, at a press conference of the Izvestia Information Center, noted that the residents of Russia need to get used to abnormal weather phenomena. “Normal” weather, averages calculated over a large amount of time, is getting smaller, he added.