The Klinaklini Glacier is the largest glacier in western North America outside...

NASA Climate Change 2 years ago

The Klinaklini Glacier is the largest glacier in western North America outside of Alaska, but it is shrinking. These two #Landsat images from Sept. 26, 1984 and Sept. 22, 2023 show how the glacier retreated northward more than 3 miles (5 kilometers). It is also getting skinnier. The ASTER (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer) on NASA”s Terra satellite shows that klinaklini’s main stem thinned by over 650 feet (nearly 200 meters) between 2000 and 2019. And it’s not alone. Decades of satellite images of western Canada make it clear that the region’s glaciers are shrinking and that the rate of ice loss is accelerating. Scientific analysis found that rising temperatures and increases in rainfall, rather than snowfall, in the area are fueling the ice losses. This is a trend that is being seen across the planet. According to one recent estimate, glaciers, excluding the ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica, lost an average of 267 gigatons of mass per year between 2000 and 2019, equivalent to 21 percent of the observed sea level rise during that period. Video Description: Alternates between two satellite views of Klinaklini Glacier 39 years apart. The first image shows white snow and ice covered areas that look like branches on the left side of the image. In the middle of the image are lines of dark gray and white that create a slow wave. This is the Klinaklini Glacier. At the top of the image is an area where two of this ice rivers meet, like a zipper. At the bottom of the image, the glacier line fades into a dark green. On the right side of the image, it is primarily shades of green uneven terrain. There is a bit of ice and snow covered areas closer to the glacier. In the second image, the look is similar, except most of the snow and ice covered areas now show a light gray and brown rocky terrain as it melted away. The glacier now only goes to the middle of the image before it changes to a light green color labeled as the glacial lake. There are also small white dots in the lake that are icebergs. #NASA #ClimateChange #Earth #EarthFromSpace

layersDaily Sustainability Digest

Published about 5 hours ago



Sustainable construction is accelerating across global markets as governments, developers and manufacturers align on reducing the carbon footprint of construction through measurable frameworks such as whole life carbon assessment and lifecycle assessment. Milan’s new Olympic Village exemplifies this shift, combining low carbon design principles with renewable building materials and a circular economy strategy for post-Games adaptation. The project demonstrates how sustainable building design can deliver substantial embodied carbon savings—studies estimate a 40% reduction compared with conventional developments—while creating flexible spaces that extend asset lifespan and improve building lifecycle performance.

Efforts to achieve net zero whole life carbon are influencing every phase of project delivery, encouraging the adoption of sustainable building practices that balance cost, performance and resilience. The UK construction sector is prioritising environmental sustainability in construction by investing in digital technologies that enhance resource efficiency in construction and optimise sustainable material specification. Manufacturers are adapting product processes to embed low embodied carbon materials and provide transparent environmental product declarations (EPDs). This upstream innovation supports a more accountable supply chain that accelerates carbon footprint reduction and nurtures a culture of eco-friendly construction.

In North America, corporate commitments to decarbonising the built environment remain resilient, with many major firms maintaining or strengthening net zero carbon targets despite market instability. Their strategies increasingly draw upon lifecycle assessment to examine both embodied carbon in materials and operational impacts, signalling a deeper understanding of whole life carbon across portfolios. As BREEAM and the forthcoming BREEAM v7 standard gain further traction, these certification frameworks offer consistent guidance on achieving energy-efficient buildings and low-impact construction outcomes aligned with global climate objectives.

On the logistics front, incremental shifts are already changing how projects manage transport-based emissions. The recent decision by AkzoNobel to fuel its logistics fleet with hydrotreated vegetable oil highlights a practical move towards carbon neutral construction and the wider adoption of circular construction strategies. By reducing embedded emissions and supporting renewable supply chains, such initiatives support life cycle thinking in construction, crucial for achieving low carbon building outcomes and strengthening environmental sustainability credentials.

Economic challenges persist, with the Building Cost Information Service projecting significant increases in construction and tender prices. These pressures reinforce the importance of life cycle cost analysis to ensure that initial expenditure on green building materials or eco-design for buildings delivers measurable long-term value. Policymakers and developers face an urgent choice between short-term savings and long-term resilience. The pathway to net zero carbon buildings depends on embedding sustainable design at every decision point, fostering a genuinely circular economy in construction that rewards innovation and safeguards environmental sustainability in the built environment.

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