Melting glaciers make popular tourist spots more dangerous

More and more people are venturing to explore the coldest corners of the world before it's too late.

Ice caps in the world's most remote destinations are melting rapidly due to climate changemaking a new travel trend called “last chance tourism” both more popular and riskier as visitors rush to see glaciers and ice caves disappear, The New York Times reportedThese rising temperatures have had adverse consequences in cold regions such as Iceland—a popular vacation spot where half a million people take part in epic events Arctic adventures every year.

One of the most popular activities that travelers can sign up for while visiting the country is a glacier tour. However, intense meltwater runoff makes the tours even more perilous, according to the Icelandic Park Service. Last month, an American tourist died during a group tour in Vatnajokull National Park. During the tour, the Breiðamerkurjökull ice cave collapsed, killing the man and injuring his girlfriend.

“This is a good example of the consequences that climate change can have on glacier tourism,” said Emmanuel Salim, assistant professor of geography at the University of Toulouse in France. The New York Times.

Since the incident, ice cave tours have been temporarily suspended, and in the meantime, tour operators are looking for ways to make these excursions safer, such as adding more guardrails and repairing hiking trails, bridges, and stairs. However, rising temperatures can often make weather less predictable. For example, in CanadaCorin Lohmann, owner of IceWalks, reroutes trails to Alberta's Athabasca Glacier two to three times a season due to glacial melt. Additionally, wildfires closed his trails in Jasper National Park this summer.

“Emergent events can occur that have never happened in the past,” added Johannes Theodorus Welling, a postdoctoral researcher in glacier tourism at the University of Iceland.

Despite the Iceland accident in August, interest in Extreme tourism is boomingWhich means that the more people visit these fragile sites threatened by climate change, the faster they are likely to deteriorate and the more likely they are to be. To put it bluntly, the Land of Fire and Ice is struggling to live up to its name these days.

“There are more outdoor enthusiasts, but the glaciers are also more unstable than they used to be,” said Trevor Kreznar, executive director of Exit Glacier Guides in Kenai Fjords National Park in Alaska. New York Times Journal. “If there were just more enthusiasts and the ice cream shops stayed the same as they were in the 1980s, it wouldn't be such a big problem.”