Tropical Glaciers in the Andes reduce to the smallest size over 11,000 years. Still, experts disagree on how severe the shrinking is when juxtaposed with periodic glacial expansions and retreats since the end of the Ice Age, around 12,000 years ago.

A new study of four glaciers in the high Andes of Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia reveals that Tropical Glaciers in the Andes are reducing to their smallest size, and the retreat is unprecedented. The glaciers are less than they have been in over 11,700 years when the mild interglacial period known as the Holocene began.

According to Andrew Gorin, a University of California, Berkeley doctoral student and first author of the study published in Science, this likely suggests that the tropical glaciers in the Andes had reduced to a smaller size than they had been in the previous 125,000 years before the most recent glacial epoch, which began 120,000 years ago. However, the data must be more exact to allow for long-term extrapolation.

“The complexities of our technique are such that we don’t have the resolution to see past about 12,000 years ago,” said Gorin, who started the research as a master’s student at Boston College with study leader Jeremy Shakun. However, a reasonable person may deduce that these glaciers are presently smaller than they have ever been since at least the previous interglacial period, about 125,000 years ago.

According to Gorin, the Andes contain 99% of all tropical glaciers, and rising global temperatures impact glacial extent more than the minor seasonal temperature changes around the equator. As a result, tropical glaciers provide a more precise picture of the effects of climate change and hence, tropical glaciers in the Andes reduce to the smallest size.

The new findings suggest that more of the world’s glaciers will likely disappear quicker than expected, decades ahead of earlier estimates.

“Given that modern glacier melt is primarily due to increasing temperatures — as opposed to reduced snowfall or shifts in cloud cover — our results suggest the tropics have already warmed beyond their Holocene range and into the Anthropocene,” said Shakun, who is a paleoclimatologist. “This is the first large region of the planet where we have substantial proof that glaciers have crossed this important benchmark – it is a ‘canary in the coal mine’ for glaciers everywhere.”

The warming during the Holocene period saw the emergence of civilisation as agricultural and commercial activities spread over the planet and glacial ice sheets receded. Many scientists call the Anthropocene a new period in which people are the primary causes of world change, particularly climate change.

The study’s consequences go beyond the Andes, acting as a “canary in the coal mine” for global glacier decline. Glaciers worldwide may melt quicker than previously thought, possibly decades ahead of schedule. This rapid melting presents enormous problems to water resources, ecosystems, and societies that rely on glacier meltwater.

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