NALCHIK, November 28. /TASS/. Glaciers covering Europe’s highest mountain, Mount Elbrus, are melting annually by about 1%, and if this trend persists, the amount of ice on the mountain may shrink 40% by 2050, Director of the High Mountain Geophysical Institute of the Russian meteorological service in Nalchik (Kabardino-Balkaria), Mukhtar Bekkiev, told TASS on Thursday.
"According to the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Geography, between 1997 and 2017, Mount Elbrus shed slightly over 20% of its glaciers, about 1% a year. If this pace continues, the amount of ice may drop by 40% or even more by 2050. The work we are carrying out confirms the conclusions about the shrinking area of ice sheets," Bekkiev said.
He specified that the High-Mountain Geophysical Institute was studying glaciers from the point of view of exposing the danger of destructive processes, such as glacial mudflow, ice avalanches, the formation of lakes and water reservoirs inside the glaciers, and so forth.
"So, here I must make reservations — so far, we haven’t summarized the current information on all glaciers, or on each glacier of the Caucasus to be more precise," the expert added. "The influence of volcano activity on the thawing or shrinking of the ice sheet on Mount Elbrus is a possible, but at the moment this is not the main, nor even the significant factor in the general process of climate change," he explained.
According to Bekkiev, if glaciers keep melting, problems with water may emerge. "Twenty percent of the glaciers that we have lost over the recent years — this is extremely a lot. Water does come from glaciers, so what will happen if all these rivers dry up or recede? The consequences will be dire," the expert warned.
"We couldn’t imagine earlier that bottled water will be bought at stores on a massive scale, but now we are buying this even when living close to glaciers. It is evident that the water supply problem will get worse, as this is already seen in some countries," he went on to say.
Bekkiev said that in September, specialists from his institute made helicopter flyovers to examine the western glaciers of the Caucasus on the territory of the Krasnodar region. The Chugush glacier has been shrinking 2.7% a year over the past seven years, and as for the other glaciers, they are shedding 1% to 1.5% of ice yearly, he noted.
Glaciers there descend lower than glaciers of the Central Caucasus (Glacier Kholodny ends at an altitude of 2,160 meters), as the amount of winter precipitation and temperature levels there are sufficient so far for the glaciers to exist at these altitudes.
"At the moment of the flyover on September 19, the amount of snow on the Western Caucasus glaciers was larger than the same time last year. Unlike across the biggest part of the Caucasus, the snow on the glaciers and adjacent territories of that mountainous area had remained practically until the start of September," he explained.
Mount Elbrus is the highest mountain in Europe, rising 5,642 meters above sea level and it is one of the "Seven Summits" — the highest mountains on each of the seven continents. It also boasts the highest cableway in Europe.