Glaciers continue to retreat
The Norwegian Glacier Museum & Ulltveit-Moe Center for Climate Science in Fjærland annually measures front changes on some glaciers in the area.
The Haugabreen glacier in Jølster retreated 6 meters, while the Vetle Supphellebreen glacier decreased by 22 meters. The glacier tongues have also melted a lot along the sides and have become thinner overall in recent years. This can be clearly seen, for example, from images of the Haugabreen glacier in 2015 and 2019.
Haugabreen in 2015 on the left and in 2019 on the right.
It is a bit sad to continue to communicate about these glaciers that are retreating and decreasing in size year after year. The temperature during the melting season increases and the normally large amounts of snow in winter are not enough to compensate for the mass loss from the glaciers.
The glacial melt has consequences that are important to focus on. Glaciers provide us with a stable water supply for renewable power generation and for irrigation in agriculture, they are a tourist attraction, they are in themselves natural masterpieces that provide qualities for living in the countryside and they can give us a lot of information about past climates. In other places in the world, glaciers are important as water sources for both drinking water and agriculture, and with bad news for glaciers, this is bad news for the people who depend on them.
Perhaps many of nature's great wonders, most notably glaciers, will be drastically altered or even disappear within a few generations. We who can see and experience glaciers today are witnesses to changes that are large and, not least, rapid from a geological perspective. It is the speed of the changes that is so frightening, and it is global warming due to human-made emissions of greenhouse gases and large-scale land changes that are the drivers of these changes.
The Norwegian Glacier Museum previously also measured the Bøyabreen and Store Supphellebreen in Fjærland. These are now being photographed and there are clear changes that can be captured with a camera.
The Bøya glacier in 1997 and 2019.
It is clear that these two glaciers have been important icons for tourism for over 150 years in Fjærland. Tourists came from far and wide to see and experience the magical ice. The landscape itself with the fjord and mountains is fantastic and unparalleled, and with the glaciers it has a high international quality. But without the glaciers, an important natural element could be lost. This is something that affects us all, whether we are tourists or local residents. By that I mean that we all contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and land changes on the planet, through our lifestyle with a lot of travel and consumption. We who work at the Norwegian Glacier Museum and with this communication experience that many of our visitors are concerned with reducing emissions and living more sustainably. How many climate summits in the UN will it take to actually reverse the trend, and is this possible?