2023-11-22 16:00:00
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Glaciers are masses of ice that crawl very slowly towards the sea, like titanic creatures, forming mountain valleys as they advance. However, in addition to frozen water, they keep minerals, gases and organic materials trapped in their bowels that could come to the surface. A study led by Arwyn Edwards of Aberystwyth University in the United Kingdom, suggests that glaciers that are melting rapidly due to global warming are also releasing tons of unknown bacteria.
To estimate the extent to which microbes are being released into rivers and streams, a team of researchers sampled surface meltwater from ten glaciers in the entire northern hemisphere: in the European Alps, Greenland, Svalbard and the Canadian Arctic, both from eroded crust and stream environments, on which extensive microbial analyzes were performed.
Tens of thousands of microbes per milliliter of water
On average, the researchers found tens of thousands of microbes in every milliliter of water, with which they estimated that during the next 80 years More than one hundred thousand tons of bacteria could be expelled into the melt waters, a figure that could increase or decrease depending on whether global warming is kept below 1.5 degrees.
Denman, the glacier that will raise sea levels
At the moment, the nature of the majority of these bacteria is unknown, because the study did not analyze individual strains, but only their combined biomass was estimated, so it cannot yet be stated whether any of these species could represent a threat to human health. In fact, it is not even known whether the microbes were active, inactive, damaged or dead.
The risk is probably small, but More studies are needed to confirm this. More careful evaluation is also needed to determine how this sudden influx of microbes could contribute to further ecological change, for example by affecting the biodiversity of microbial communities in different regions.
The disappearance of glaciers
It is estimated that one third of World Heritage glaciers will not exist by 2050. It is still possible to save the other two thirds of the glaciers, if the increase in global temperatures does not exceed 1.5° C compared to the pre-industrial period . Furthermore, if all that ice melted, the oceans would redraw the world map, as explained David Farrier in his book Footprints: “In total, there is enough ice locked in the planet’s ice sheets and glaciers for the sea level to rise 60 meters compared to the current level.”
Consequently, conserving glaciers is not only the equivalent of preventing an endangered animal from disappearing, as the ice historian has said. Mark Carey. It is a way of talking about the planet itself.
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