By, Thomas Sumner April 6, 2015
The Great White North may lose its glaciers faster than previously thought. A detailed physics simulation of how glaciers melt in a warming world show that Western Canada’s glaciers will shed 70 percent of their ice by 2100 relative to their 2005 volumes, researchers report online April 6 in Nature Geoscience. That level of melt would raise global sea levels by roughly 4.4 millimeters and reshape the region’s landscape.Western Canadian glaciers cover 26,700 square kilometers, an area larger than Vermont. Each glacier melts differently than its siblings depending on its shape and location. Most previous projections ignore or greatly simplify the ice-melt physics