Community | February 28, 2011 | 11 comments

Climate change halves Peru glacier in 23 years

source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5htSvBVTDFBNBgjgNUEFs1z2pEPuw?docId=CNG.86...

Image
JanforGore
A glacier on Peru's Huaytapallana Moutain shed half its surface ice in just 23 years, officials said Wednesday, reinforcing concerns of climate change's growing threat to fresh water resources.

"Recent scientific studies indicate that between June 1983 and August 2006, the glacier has lost 50 percent of its surface ice," Erasmo Meza, manager of natural resources and the environment in the central Andean region of Junin, told the official Andina news agency.

He said the five square kilometers (1.9 square miles) of ice shrinkage on Huaytapallana, whose steep, jagged glacier and breathtaking lakes are popular tourist draws, was caused by global warming and presents growing problems in agriculture, health, fresh water resources and disaster mitigation.

To prevent further deterioration on the 5,557-meter (18,230-foot) mountain, the regional government of Junin is developing a project to declare Huaytapallana a natural conservation area -- a move Meza said could help prevent damage from a mining company doing a feasibility study in the area.

Glacier studies are often carried out in the Andes, the so-called "Roof of the Americas" region comprising more than 100 peaks above 5,000 meters (16,500 feet).

But the Huaytapallana studies show a sharper rate of glacial melt than other major findings.

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  1. groups:
    Community,   Green,   Earth and Science,   Earth Care,   2 more
  2. tags:
    Environment,  Climate Change,  Peru,  Survival,  8 more
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11 comments // Climate change halves Peru glacier in 23 years

  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  

    • I almost feel sorry for the trolls here that their lies and propaganda are so ignored... almost. And they think they are debunking the article and the reality as pointed out even by those living it as they post their crayoned in unsourced graphs and cherrypicked information ala Monckton the disgraced debunked denier fraud more than likely backed by the Heartland Institute, as they actually corroborate the information given. The winters in the Southern Hemisphere have been intense just as the summers, which is the point about climate trends. But then, once again their ignorance shows because they all think this is only about "weather." But for the new people here you will get used to the graphs unsourced as they make up their BS while they go along to make sure their oil money keeps rolling in.

      As I was told by one of their kind here: YAWN.

    • 1 year ago
  • IceKat
    • -2
      IceKat  
    • JanforGore:

      Once again all we are subjected to is ad-hominem attacks. Well, when you've got nowhere else to go you may as well resort to some sort of insulting behaviour.

      "Over the past three or four years we have seen temperatures during the winter months get lower..."
      Three years of cooling is not weather, and it also is not proof of man-made global warming, man-made climate change or, as you now like to call it, biodistress!!!
      The temperature anomaly chart is from National Centres for Environmental Prediction, as it states on the chart.
      Keep it up Jan, you can cry global Warming until you're blue in the face, because with global temperatures now falling, blue is the colour you're going to be seeing a lot more of - especially on temperature charts!

    • 1 year ago
  • IceKat
    • -2
      IceKat  

    • While the extremists are still hell-bent on finding someone to blame and pay for the natural rise in global temperatures that occurred towards the end of last century, the real world continues to cool causing real problems for people.
      ______________________________________________
      Peru declares state of emergency amid plunging temperatures

      Hundreds die from extreme cold in remote mountain villages also struggling with severe poverty

      "Over the past three or four years we have seen temperatures during the winter months get lower, and people are unable to survive this," said Silvia Noble, from Plan Peru, an NGO. "This cold weather is now extending into areas that never saw these low temperatures before and children and elderly people are especially at risk as they are not physically strong enough to last month after month of sub-zero conditions."

      http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/01/peru-freezing-weather-emergency

    • 1 year ago
  • IceKat
  • JanforGore
  • IceKat
    • -2
      IceKat  
    • Image
    • JanforGore:

      Who said there are no melting glaciers? Who says there is no climate change?
      The real trolls are those with a severe lack of knowledge about meteorology or climate, those who blame every weather event on man's use of fossil fuels, and those who are still stuck in the 1980s.
      Unfortunately your video doesn't work here but I'm well aware of the story.
      A group of misguided extremists paint a mountain white after winning a "100 Ideas to Save the Planet" competition. The winner, Eduardo Gold stands to pocket $200,000 from this propaganda event. Surely if it's all about saving the planet money shouldn't come into it? Oh well... follow the money, as they say, but what amazes me is how it's now perfectly acceptable to spread whitewash over 70 hectares of land! Try that anywhere else and the extremists will have you up in court in a flash. Just because there's no snow there at the moment does not mean the mountain is devoid of life, but spreading whitewash over plants and insects seems to be ok in the minds of the deluded few. What a sorry bunch these people are.

      Image shows temperature anomalies forecast for South America. Peru doesn't look too steamy to me.

    • 1 year ago
  • congoboy
  • crystalman
    • -3
      crystalman  

    • 'The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen, Norway.
      Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, he declared, all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm.
      Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.
      Within a few years....due to the ice melt....the sea will rise and make most coastal cities uninhabitable.'

      Washington Post November 2nd 1922

    • 1 year ago
  • crystalman
    • -3
      crystalman  

    • 'Climate change halves Peru glacier in 23 years'. ROTFLMAO. Demonising climate change is like hating air or any of the elements. It's deranged. Only an insane person would want to stop climate change. If there were no climate change, there would be no world. It's called life. Morons. Voted down.

    • 1 year ago
  • IceKat
    • -3
      IceKat  

    • Why is anyone surprised by this?

      "Recent scientific studies indicate that between June 1983 and August 2006, the glacier has lost 50 percent of its surface ice,"

      1983 to 2006 was a warm period in our climate, there have been many swings where warm periods see melting ice in some (though not all) parts of the world. I'm sure the melting water was utilised by people, and isn't that a good thing? Water is life, after all! What would be worse is if a steady decline in temperatures bring about a end to the melt cutting off water supplies.

    • 1 year ago
  • tverdell
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