New York: The latest data on glacier melting has painted a bleak future for the mammoth ice bodies, prompting the United Nations Environment Programme to urge countries to agree to a new emission reduction pact.

According to the UNEP-backed World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMC), data from nearly 30 reference glaciers in nine mountain ranges indicates that the average rate of melting of glaciers more than doubled between 2004-05 and 2005-2006.

"There are many canaries emerging in the climate change coal mine," Achim Steiner, UNEP Executive Director said adding glaciers are perhaps among those making most noise.

Steiner further said 2009 will be a crucial year with the "litmus test" coming in Copenhagen where the negotiation process for a successor pact to the Kyoto Protocol is scheduled to conclude.

"Here governments must agree on a decisive new emissions reduction and adaptation-focused regime. Otherwise, and like the glaciers, our room for manoeuvre and the opportunity to act may simply melt away," the official said.

Based in University of Zurich, WGMS, which has been tracking glaciers for more than a century, noted that between 1980-1999, average ice loss had been 0.3 metres per year compared to 0.5 metres after the start of the new millennium.

"The latest figures are part of what appears to be an accelerating trend with no apparent end in sight," Wilfried Haeberli, WGMS Director said.

On average, one metre water equivalent corresponds to 1.1 metre in ice thickness, which suggests a further shrinking in 2006 of 1.5 actual meters and since 1980 a total reduction in thickness of ice of just over 11.5 meters, or nearly 38 feet.
Source : PTI