Glacier melt speeds up, risks lives

2010-12-07 19:34

Cancun - United Nations and other international experts say the lives and livelihoods of people in south Asia are at "high risk" as global warming melts glaciers in the Himalayas.

The glacier melt is sending floods crashing down from overloaded mountain lakes and depriving farmers of steady sources of water.

The UN Environment Programme says that worldwide, "since the beginning of the 1980s, the rate of ice loss has increased substantially in many regions, concurrent with an increase in global mean air temperatures".

In a report issued on Tuesday at the UN climate conference in Cancun, the experts said glaciers in southern South America and Alaska's coastal mountains have been losing mass faster and for longer than glaciers elsewhere in the world.

- AP