UN: Global warming to melt major glaciers by 2050 — including Yosemite's
Glaciers at some of the world’s most famous World Heritage sites are set to vanish within 30 years due to climate change — including those at Yosemite National Park, a new UN report warns.
Threat level: “Glaciers in a third of the 50 World Heritage sites are condemned to disappear by 2050, regardless of efforts to limit temperature increases,” according to the UNESCO report, published Thursday.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate science
What began as a theory in the 1890s — that industrial emissions of carbon dioxide could increase global temperatures — had progressed to a scientific fact a century later. Scientists across a range of disciplines are studying the impact of the still-growing concentration of carbon dioxide and other so-called “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere as they call for industrial and governmental policies to slow, then halt, the warming of the planet.