Heat-health plans overlook mental health risks
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Updates every hour. Last Updated: 27-Jul-2025 07:10 ET (27-Jul-2025 11:10 GMT/UTC)
A new Science study warns that if temperatures rise to 2.7°C by 2100, only 24% of glacier mass would remain, contributing over nine inches to sea-level rise. Even with no further warming, 39% of glaciers are projected to vanish. However, if global targets like the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C goal are met, more than half of that loss could be avoided. The findings highlight what’s at stake for water, coastlines, and ecosystems in the UN’s International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation.
An international study has found that Earth’s glaciers will lose 76% of their 2020 mass under current climate policy pledges made by nations.
Those pledges would lead to a global mean temperature 4.9 degrees Fahrenheit above preindustrial levels.
Consequences of the glacier mass loss include a 9-inch sea level rise, changes in biodiversity and increased natural hazards, the research finds.
Alaska, one of 19 glacier regions designated by the international team, would lose 69% of its glacier mass. Of those regions, which don’t include the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, Alaska has the third-highest glacier mass today, at 16,246 gigatons. Only the Antarctic islands/sub-Antarctic islands and northern Arctic Canada have more glacier mass.
Immediate recovery efforts receive the most attention after severe natural disasters, yet new data from researchers at Drexel University and the University of Maryland suggests these climate events often also leave a critical long-term — and often unaddressed — problem in declines in access to health care.