Celebrating the first World Day for Glaciers: A call to protect our ice
March 21 marks UNESCO's first ever World Day for Glaciers!
Glaciers are vital components of Earth's ecosystems—providing freshwater to over 2 billion people across the globe, as well as regulating sea levels and support biodiversity. Therefore, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization has declared March 21 to be World Day for Glaciers.
This initiative sets out to celebrate glaciers and educate people on their importance—something that is more crucial now than ever as our glaciers continue to vanish at an alarming rate. Even Canada's own glaciers are at risk of being lost.
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Glaciers have been used in research for decades to study and monitor climate change, as well as our planet's ecosystem health and history. Ice core samples taken from glaciers can give us a precise timeline of what Earth's atmosphere was like throughout history, as atmospheric gases are preserved within the layers of ice.
Unprecedented ice loss with far-reaching impacts
While it's normal throughout the course of history for glaciers to advance and retreat (grow and melt), the rate of glacial retreat that we have seen since the Industrial Revolution has been well beyond the scope of natural climate change.
Increasing global temperatures caused by an overabundance of greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere have led to an astounding estimated 9 trillion tonnes of ice loss since 1975.
Wedgemount Lake glacier in British Columbia. (Mia Gordon/TWN)
The impacts of glacial loss will be felt far and wide, and humans will not be exempt.
Storing about 70 per cent of Earth's freshwater, the runoff from glaciers provides drinking water for humans, wildlife, and plants. They feed rivers and streams with consistently flowing water that humans use to power hydro dams for a clean source of electricity. Without glaciers, we won't have access to all that water anymore.
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We'll see sea levels rise at an even higher rate, flooding coastal communities worldwide and displacing hundreds of thousands of people. Natural disasters such as landslides and floods will increase as mountain regions become unstable and more susceptible to erosion without the support from the massive ice.
For more information on World Day for Glaciers and to learn more about glaciers, visit the United Nation's 2025 International Year of Glaciers' Preservation website.
With files from Connor O'Donovan, a video journalist at The Weather Network.
