Humans now strongest driver of glaciers melting

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/aug/15/humans-now-strongest-driver-of-glaciers-melting-study-finds

Aug. 15, 2014

Melting of glaciers caused by human activity has soared in the past 20 years, a study has shown.

Human influence is now the strongest driver of glacier melting, which has been occurring since the end of the “Little Ice Age” in the mid-19th century, it is claimed.

Between 1851 and 2010, only a quarter of glacial mass loss was due to human-induced climate change, scientists calculated. But during the last two decades of that period the human contribution rose to two thirds.

Lead researcher Dr Ben Barzeion, from the University of Innsbruck in Austria, said: “Typically, it takes glaciers decades or centuries to adjust to climate changes. In the 19th and first half of 20th century we observed that glacier mass loss attributable to human activity is hardly noticeable but since then has steadily increased.

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