As glaciers melt, study seeks protection of ecosystems that emerge in their place

GENEVA—A new scientific study published Thursday suggests the world should start preparing to protect the ecosystems that emerge from under the disappearing ice, as a warming planet is inevitably causing glaciers to melt. If nothing is done to stop global warming, the world could lose glaciers totaling the size of Finland by 2100. Even a best-case scenario— if the targets of the Paris Agreement to stop climate change are met—foresees glacier shrinkage the size of Nepal, according to the study published in the scientific journal Nature. The analysis from Swiss and French scientists adds to worries about glacier melt and a growing call to step up efforts to protect the planet from climate change. In their research, the scientists say humans have grown to live with glaciers for millennia, and the worrying retreat of the ice cover—currently amounting to 10 percent of the Earth’s land surface—will require both action to stop it and adaptation for its impact.

Glaciers play a key role on the planet, by reflecting sunlight or providing fresh water for irrigation, power generation and consumption, says study co-author Jean-Baptiste Bosson, a FrenchSwiss glacier expert with the National Council for the Protection of Nature in Annecy, France.

He said work is being done to slow down the retreat of glaciers, though it won’t be “decisive” in saving them.

“But after the glaciers (melt) not everything is lost,” Bosson said in an interview. “We especially need to protect the nature that will follow the glaciers: we need to protect the forests of tomorrow, the great lakes of tomorrow, the great fjords of tomorrow.”

The areas where glaciers once were will be “degraded” when the ice melts, Bosson said, adding that nature should be left to do its work: “There is a chance for ecosystems to rebound if we leave them space and time...nature itself will find solutions: It will capture carbon, purify fresh water, create habitats for biodiversity.”

Glacier retreat hit unprecedented high levels in Europe last year, especially in Switzerland.

The team behind the Nature study analyzed some 210,000 glaciers on Earth, not including the gigantic Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, and found that glaciers covered some 665,000 square kilometers (257,000 square miles), about the size of Afghanistan, in 2020.

Depending on the different scenarios, which the experts slice up from worst-case to best-case, the world could lose between roughly 149,000 square kilometers (58,000 square miles) to some 339,000 square kilometers (131,000 square miles), by 2100. The team accounts for possible

The yuan slid to 7.32 to the dollar before recovering to 7.26 following what financial analysts said appeared to be buying by Chinese banks to support the currency. That made one yuan worth about 13.8 cents.

A weaker yuan helps exporters by making their goods cheaper abroad, but Beijing has promised to avoid “competitive devaluation.” Complaints that China gets an unfair trade advantage by keeping its yuan weak is an irritant in relations with Washington and other governments.

“Will we just continue to see a sort of gradual weakening of the currency?” said Thomas Mathews of Capital Economics. “That might be one of the key channels through which they could actually support the economy.”

However, letting the yuan slide too far might cause companies and investors to question whether Beijing is changing its currency policy, Mathews said.

“They’ve had problems with this sort of thing in the past,” he said. “They’ll be pretty nervous about it.” statistical variance. The loss could be much larger.

Economic growth declined to 0.8 percent over the previous quarter in the three months ending in June, down from 2.2 percent in January to March. That is the equivalent of 3.2 percent annual growth, which would be among China’s weakest in decades.

“Melting glaciers have become icons of climate change. People are mostly worried about the impact glacier melt will have on sea-level rise, seasonal water availability, and geohazards,” said Prof. Ben Marzeion, of the Institute of Geography at Germany’s University of Bremen.

“This study shows that there is more we need to be prepared for. It also shows that we are still in the process of uncovering the multitude of impacts climate change will have,” said Marzeion, who was not involved in the research.

Twila Moon, deputy lead scientist at the US National Snow and Ice Center, laid out the challenges that policymakers will face as landscapes change with glacier retreat.

“There is no question that ice loss around the world is a serious issue, from influencing water availability to raising our sea lev - els,” Moon, who wasn’t involved in the study, said in an email.

The People’s Bank of China gave no indication whether it might try to stop the latest decline.

Last year, banks were ordered to “maintain the basic stability” of the currency after it slid to below 7.2 to the dollar. The yuan fell to 7.30 to the dollar last October. It last traded below 7.32 in 2007.

The yuan sank in 2019 during trade tension with then-President Donald Trump. That prompted suggestions Beijing was trying to reduce the impact of US tariff hikes, but there was no official confirmation. The currency later strengthened. The central bank cut its interest rate Tuesday on a one-week loan to banks to 1.8 percent from 1.9 percent. The change was modest, but it added to moves by Chinese rates in the opposite direction from US rates, which are at a two-decade high.

The Federal Reserve made the dollar look even more attractive as an investment by suggesting this week it might be open to considering another rate hike to cool inflation.

Chinese consumer and business activity weakened further in July, official data showed this week.

Customs data earlier showed exports fell 14.5 percent compared with a year ago after US and European rate hikes cooled consumer demand.

“This research highlights another impact—the uncovering of new land as glaciers shrink.”

“Glacier retreat can cause increasing hazards, like the outburst flood that destroyed homes in Juneau earlier this summer, or change water availability for drinking and crops,” Moon wrote. “We must plan ahead while also work hard to reduce heat-trapping gas emissions and limit future damage.”

Bosson says that record high temperatures reached this year in the northern hemisphere are producing worrisome outcomes that could have an even greater impact in the future—though not all data is in yet.

“We try to tell the story of the future of the surfaces today occupied by glaciers on Earth,” he said in a video call from the French Alpine town of Annecy. “Then we ask: Will tomorrow still see big glaciers, or smaller glaciers depending on the climate scenarios?” AP

Pig kidney works in a donated body for over a month, a step toward animal-human transplants

NEW YORK—Surgeons transplanted a pig’s kidney into a braindead man and for over a month it’s worked normally—a critical step toward an operation the New York team hopes to eventually try in living patients.

Scientists around the country are racing to learn how to use animal organs to save human lives, and bodies donated for research offer a remarkable rehearsal.

The latest experiment announced Wednesday by NYU Langone Health marks the longest a pig kidney has functioned in a person, albeit a deceased one—and it’s not over. Researchers are set to track the kidney’s performance for a second month.

“Is this organ really going to work like a human organ? So far it’s looking like it is,” Dr. Robert Montgomery, director of NYU Langone’s transplant institute, told The Associated Press.

“It looks even better than a human kidney,” Montgomery said on July 14 as he replaced a deceased man’s own kidneys with a single kidney from a genetically modified pig—and watched it immediately start producing urine.

The possibility that pig kidneys might one day help ease a dire shortage of transplantable organs persuaded the family of Maurice “Mo” Miller from upstate New York to donate his body for the experiment. He’d died suddenly at 57 with a previously undiagnosed brain cancer, ruling out routine organ donation.

“I struggled with it,” his sister, Mary Miller-Duffy, told the AP about her decision. But he liked helping others and “I think this is what my brother would want. So I offered my brother to them.”

“He’s going to be in the medical books, and he will live on forever,” she added.

Attempts at animal-tohuman transplants, or xenotransplantation, have failed for decades as people’s immune systems attacked the foreign tissue. Now researchers are using pigs genetically modified so their organs better match human bodies.

Last year with special permission from regulators, University of Maryland surgeons transplanted a gene-edited pig heart into a dying man who was out of other options. He survived only two months before the organ failed for reasons that aren’t fully understood but that offer lessons for future attempts.

Next, rather than last-ditch efforts, the Food and Drug Administration is considering whether to allow some small but rigorous studies of pig heart or kidney transplants in volunteer patients.

The NYU experiment is one of a string of developments aimed at speeding the start of such clinical trials. Also Wednesday, the University of Alabama at Birmingham reported another important success—a pair of pig kidneys worked normally inside another donated body for seven days.

Kidneys don’t just make urine—they provide a wide range of jobs in the body. In the journal JAMA Surgery, UAB transplant surgeon Dr. Jayme Locke reported lab tests documenting the gene-modified pig organs’ performance. She said the weeklong experiment demonstrates they can “provide lifesustaining kidney function.”

These kinds of experiments are critical to answer remaining questions “in a setting where we’re not putting someone’s life in jeopardy,” said Montgomery, the NYU kidney transplant surgeon who also received his own heart transplant—and is acutely aware of the need for a new source of organs.

More than 100,000 patients are on the nation’s transplant list and thousands die each year waiting.

Maryland’s Dr. Muhammad Mohiuddin cautions that it’s not clear how closely a deceased body will mimic a live patient’s reactions to a pig organ. But he said the research educates the public about xenotransplantation so “people will not be shocked” when it’s time to try again in the living. AP