The increasing effect of climate change and global warming, which led land glaciers in Türkiye to melt and shrink by 30%-35%, could steer all mountain and valley glaciers toward extinction in 50 years, Turkish experts warned recently.

The presence of glaciers in the poles, which prevents the world from overheating by reflecting the sun's rays, has decreased by almost half since the 1970s.

However, these losses due to the impact of climate change are not limited to the polar ice caps. The land glaciers in the mountains, which feed the environment in terms of water resources, are also melting.

Professor Mehmet Akif Sarıkaya, lecturer at the Eurasia Earth Sciences Institute Solid Earth Department of Istanbul Technical University (ITU), said that polar glaciers are large in scale, while mountain glaciers are smaller.

Reiterating that both types of glaciers lost mass and melted with the climate crisis, Sarıkaya said: "In this respect, it is not possible to distinguish the two from each other. Since polar glaciers are much larger, their melting mechanism is not as fast as those on land. The melting of glaciers in mid-latitude regions like ours takes place much faster."

Explaining that the increasing temperatures after industrialization decreased the presence of glaciers in Türkiye as well as in the rest of the world, Sarıkaya emphasized that land glaciers are the main water resources, and the melting of these glaciers means a decrease in water resources.

Noting that the glaciers in Anatolia are relatively small compared to other parts of the world and that the melting of the existing glaciers will not have a significant impact, Sarıkaya noted that there are 51 glacier zones in Türkiye, at 12 locations, encompassing a total area of 10 square kilometers (3.86 square miles).

"Our largest glacier situated at the top of Mount Ararat contracted from 8 square kilometers in 1976 to 5 square kilometers today. Overall, there is a 30%-35% area reduction in all our glaciers," Sarıkaya said.

"Our glaciers in the Cilo Mountains of Hakkari have shrunk by 50%-60% in the last 100 years. In our projection studies, we assume that if the warming continues at this rate, the glacier in Erciyes will disappear completely," he added.

Attributing the human impact and the temperature records around the world, which indeed peaked at the start of the week, Sarıkaya reiterated that the melting of glaciers accelerates and negatively affects water resources.

Impact on forest fires

Another Turkish academic, on the other hand, stated that in addition to climate change affecting the rise in glacial melting, it also indirectly triggers wildfires.

The increasing melting of the polar glaciers, which prevent the world from overheating by reflecting about 80% of the sunrays, is increasing the number and frequency of extreme weather events by affecting the hydrometeorological balance, Murat Türkeş, a member of the board of directors of Türkiye's Bogazici University Climate Change and Policy Application and Research Center, told Anadolu Agency (AA).

These weather events, which manifest themselves as an increase in temperatures, drought, changes in precipitation regime and harder-blowing winds, are important factors causing forest fires.

Türkeş said the ice sphere, consisting of polar, continental glaciers, glacial shields and sea glaciers, as well as Alpine valley glaciers in high mountains, is one of the components that make up the climate system.

For the survival of the glaciers, it should snow, and there should be a climate that allows the snow to remain on the ground for a while and be located around the glacier on the mountains, he said. Türkeş further said, "That's where the problem arises."

"In the last 50 years, glaciers in many regions of the world have been shrinking in volume and area because the climate has been warming, snowfall is decreasing, and even if it snows, air temperatures have been increasing causing snow to melt rapidly. The glaciers are not being fed," he explained.

Analyzing the situation Türkiye has been witnessing lately, he said, "If the glaciers continue to melt at this rate, the poles will warm up over the next century, and a world in which they completely melt will be perhaps 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than today."

"This means that tropical, very hot, very dry conditions" would take the stage in the country, he noted.