ISTANBUL?The glaciers atop Mount Ararat, the peak in eastern Turkey where Noah's Ark is believed by devotees to have settled after the biblical flood, have shrunk by 30 percent in surface area over the last 30 years, a researcher said Wednesday.

"We used satellite images to analyze the response of glaciers at the summit of Mount Ararat to climate change," geologist Mehmet Akif Sarikaya told AFP.

"The glacier surface area decreased from eight square kilometres (3.04 square miles) in 1976 to 5.5 square kilometres (2.09 square miles) in 2008, a loss of about seven hectares (17 acres) a year," said Sarikaya, an assistant professor at Istanbul's Fatih University, who also lectures at the University of Omaha, Nebraska.

The scientist warned that temperature change might eventually threaten the very existence of the ice fields.

"We sought the reasons for the melting and found that the temperature had increased by 0.03 degrees Celsius (0.05 degrees Fahrenheit) per year" during the period studied, he said.

Other factors, such as increased precipitation, sunshine or topography, might have also contributed to the glacial loss, he added.

Sarikaya said he was unable to comment on the causes of climate change around Mount Ararat.

Previous research has found accelerating glacier erosion in the European Alps and South American Andes, and attributed the loss to man-made global warming.

The Book of Genesis says God decided to flood the Earth after seeing how corrupt it had become, and told Noah to build an Ark and fill it with two of every species.

After the waters receded, the Ark came to rest on a mountain that believers contend is Mount Ararat, at 5,137 meters (16,853 feet) the country's highest peak.

Many teams have scoured the mountain to find the Ark, without any convincing results so far. Sarikaya declined to comment on whether the melting of the glaciers would provide new opportunities in the search.