Query: The research also revealed how large areas of the polar ice caps could collapse and significant changes to ecosystems could see the Sahara Desert become green and the edges of tropical forests turn into fire-dominated savanna.

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Retreat of glaciers since 1850 <=SEP=> The retreat of glaciers since 1850 affects the availability of fresh water for irrigation and domestic use , mountain recreation , animals and plants that depend on glacier-melt , and , in the longer term , the level of the oceans . Studied by glaciologists , the temporal coincidence of glacier retreat with the measured increase of atmospheric greenhouse gases is often cited as an evidentiary underpinning of global warming . Mid-latitude mountain ranges such as the Himalayas , Alps , Rocky Mountains , Cascade Range , and the southern Andes , as well as isolated tropical summits such as Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa , are showing some of the largest proportionate glacial losses .   Glacier mass balance is the key determinant of the health of a glacier . If the amount of frozen precipitation in the accumulation zone exceeds the quantity of glacial ice lost due to melting or in the ablation zone a glacier will advance ; if the accumulation is less than the ablation , the glacier will retreat . Glaciers in retreat will have negative mass balances , and if they do not find an equilibrium between accumulation and ablation , will eventually disappear .   The Little Ice Age was a period from about 1550 to 1850 when the world experienced relatively cooler temperatures compared to the present . Subsequently , until about 1940 , glaciers around the world retreated as the climate warmed substantially . Glacial retreat slowed and even reversed temporarily , in many cases , between 1950 and 1980 as global temperatures cooled slightly . Since 1980 , a significant global warming has led to glacier retreat becoming increasingly rapid and ubiquitous , so much so that some glaciers have disappeared altogether , and the existences of many of the remaining glaciers are threatened . In locations such as the Andes of South America and Himalayas in Asia , the demise of glaciers in these regions has the potential to affect water supplies in those areas .   The retreat of mountain glaciers , notably in western North America , Asia , the Alps and tropical and subtropical regions of South America , Africa and Indonesia , provide evidence for the rise in global temperatures since the late 19th century . The acceleration of the rate of retreat since 1995 of key outlet glaciers of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets may foreshadow a rise in sea level , which would affect coastal regions .

Regime shift <=SEP=> In ecology , regime shifts are large , abrupt , persistent changes in the structure and function of a system . A regime is a characteristic behaviour of a system which is maintained by mutually reinforced processes or feedbacks . Regimes are considered persistent relative to the time period over which the shift occurs . The change of regimes , or the shift , usually occurs when a smooth change in an internal process ( feedback ) or a single disturbance ( external shocks ) triggers a completely different system behavior . Although such non-linear changes have been widely studied in different disciplines ranging from atoms to climate dynamics , regime shifts have gained importance in ecology because they can substantially affect the flow of ecosystem services that societies rely upon , such as provision of food , clean water or climate regulation . Moreover , regime shift occurrence is expected to increase as human influence on the planet increases -- the Anthropocene -- including current trends on human induced climate change and biodiversity loss .