France's largest glacier is quickly disappearingIn Ursula LeGuin's 1966's sci-fi novel Rocannon's World, there is a city called "Kerguelen" on the planet "New South Georgia."
Kerguelen is also a French territory composed of about 300 islands in the southern Indian Ocean named after Breton navigator Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen de Trémarec, who discovered the archipelago in 1772.
Also known as Desolation Island, the Îles Kerguelen is home to feral cats, feral sheep and the Cook Glacier, which is melting at an alarming rate.
"Over the last 40 years, the Cook ice cap has thinned by around 1.5 meters per year, its area has decreased by 20%, and retreat has been twice as rapid since 1991," according to a recent press release by France's National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS).
While the scientists admit that human activity may not be the sole cause of the glacier's accelerated melting, it is clear that anthropogenic global warming has played a major role over the last four decades.
In LeGuin's book, a young woman leaves her planet to find a family heirloom, but due to relativistic time dilation, what was a quick trip from her perspective translates to many years back home, where she returns to find her husband dead and her daughter an adult.
If greenhouse gas-emitting human activity is not reduced soon, future generations may have to leave our home planet in search of more than just heirlooms.
image: Christmas Harbour, Kerguelens Land, copper engraving 200mm x 130mm, by George Cooke, dated 1811 (The Maritime Gallery, Kent, England)
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