Photographer: Paul Nicklen
Where: The Arctic
Publication: Rio Conventions Calendar
Ice is melting everywhere – and at an accelerating pace.
Rising global temperatures are thawing frozen ground and thinning ice caps and glaciers, that in some cases have existed for millennia.
New research, published in Nature last week suggests that rising CO2 caused much of the global warming responsible for ending the last ice age, a trend the scientists believe is being repeated now.
Meanwhile latest figures from the European Space Agency’s Envisat satellite found that just 15% of the Larsen B Ice Shelf in Antarctica remains, compared to in 1995.
These changes are raising sea levels faster than earlier projections by scientists, threatening both human and wildlife populations.
The Rio Conventions Calendar is published annually by Entico in partnership with the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).