tagged w/ melting glaciers
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The water supplied by the glaciers of the Cordillera Blanca, vital to a huge region of northwest Peru, is decreasing 20 years sooner than expected, according to a new study.
Water flows from the region's melting glaciers have already peaked and are in decline, Michel Baraer, a glaciologist at Canada's McGill University, told Tierramérica. This is happening 20 to 30 years earlier than forecasted.
"Our study reveals that the glaciers feeding the Río Santa watershed are now too small to maintain past water flows. There will be less water, as much as 30 percent less during the dry season," said Baraer, lead author of the study "Glacier Recession and Water Resources in Peru’s Cordillera Blanca", published Dec. 22 in the Journal of Glaciology.
When glaciers begin to shrink in size, they generate "a transitory increase in runoff as they lose mass," the study notes.
However, Baraer explained, the water flowing from a glacier eventually hits a plateau and from this point onwards there is a decrease in the discharge of melt water. "The decline is permanent. There is no going back."
Part of the South American Andes Mountain chain, the Cordillera Blanca is a series of snow-covered peaks running north to south, parallel to the Cordillera Negra, located further west. Between the two ranges lies the Callejón de Huaylas, through which the Río Santa runs, eventually emptying into the Pacific Ocean.
The tropical glaciers of the Andes Mountains are in rapid decline, losing 30 to 50 percent of their ice in the last 30 years, according to French Institute for Research and Development (IRD).
Most of the decline has been since 1976, IRD reported, due to rising temperatures in the region as a result of climate change. In Bolivia, the Chacaltaya glacier disappeared in 2009.
Even in the colder regions of the Andes glaciers are in full retreat. Chile's Center for Scientific Studies reported this month that the Jorge Montt Glacier in the vast Patagonian Ice Fields receded one entire km in just one year. Historically glacial retreat is extremely slow: one or two km per 100 years.
Melting glaciers around the world present some of the strongest evidence that global climate change is underway, said Lonnie Thompson of Ohio State University, the world's foremost glaciologist.
Thompson warns that without sharp reductions in the use of fossil fuels, the impacts of climate change could come faster and beyond what humanity can adapt to.
Warmer temperatures not only melt ice but also have major effects on snowfall.
As cool seasons become warmer and snow turns to rain, the amount and duration of snow packs decrease and the permanent snow line moves upslope, according to the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI), an intergovernmental science organization based in São José dos Campos, Brazil.
These changes have significant effects on the seasonality of stream flows, increasing winter flow rates while the availability of water during the summer declines when water in streams and rivers comes mainly from snow and ice melt.
In many High Andean tropical and subtropical valleys, spring and summer snow and glacier melt are critical for crops, livestock and human consumption. Several major Andean cities rely heavily on glacier and snow melt for their water supply, such as La Paz and Lima, with demand increasingly outstripping the supply, according to a 2010 IAI communiqué.
The Cordillera Blanca has the most glaciers of any tropical mountain range in the world. In the 1930s glaciers covered up to 850 sq km of the region and now they cover less than 600 sq km, reports Baraer and the eight other study authors from McGill University, Ohio State University, the University of California, the IRD and the glaciology unit of the Peruvian National Water Authority.
Most of the melt water from these glaciers drains into the Río Santa watershed. The researchers compared detailed water flow measurements from the 1950s to water flows in recent years, and determined that of the nine sub-watersheds of the Río Santa, seven have passed their peak water flow and are in decline, and almost all of the decline is during the dry summer months.
Changes in precipitation and the effects of La Niña and El Niño were also assessed and were not responsible for the declines, Baraer said.
Until now it was widely believed that such declines would take place 20 to 30 years from now, allowing time to adapt to a future with less water. "Those years don't exist," said Baraer.
More at the linkThe water supplied by the glaciers of the Cordillera Blanca, vital to a huge region of... more
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Summary: Dan Fagre, a research ecologist at the Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center of the United States Geological Survey, speaks with Earthjustice staffer Jessica Knoblauch. Over the past 15 years, Fagre has worked to understand how climate change will affect mountain ecosystems such as Glacier National Park, the cornerstone of the Crown of the Continent ecosystem and a major focus of Earthjustice's litigation. Scientists like Fagre predict that, due to rising temperatures, Glacier National Park will be glacier free by 2030.
Click on link to read everything imaginable... and prepare to perhaps cry.Summary: Dan Fagre, a research ecologist at the Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center... more
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One or two years of strange rainfall patterns could be just that, and may not be an indication of a larger, catastrophic pattern. But Bolivians, especially the elderly, are reminded daily of their changing climate by the dwindling glaciers on the mountains around them. Perhaps not surprisingly, the snow-capped Andes are sacred in pre-Columbian Andean religions. The Aymara empire extended across Bolivia's highlands for several hundred years before they were conquered by the Inca, and then the Spanish shortly thereafter. Both Aymara and Quechua (Inca) traditions live on today, with many Bolivians speaking indigenous languages first and Spanish as a second language or not at all. In the last half-century, these ancient peoples have seen many of their glaciers shrink or even disappear.
Perhaps the starkest example is the glacier on Chacaltaya, a mountain near the capitol city of La Paz. Chacaltaya was once home to the world's highest (and Bolivia's only) ski resort, which was built in 1938. Between then and 2009, the glacier melted and entirely disappeared. As of 2009, the ski resort's operations became limited to a small area that sometimes receives snow. A travel Web site now boasts that, "it is still fun to visit this mountain whether or not you plan on skiing," suggesting that visitors go hiking and take in the beautiful views of La Paz and Lake Titicaca.
Of course, the loss of a ski resort is nothing compared to what else is at stake. Nor is Chacaltaya the only mountain with a glacier in jeopardy. The majority of Bolivia's population lives in the highlands, and they depend on the glaciers for drinking water, irrigation, and hydroelectric power. Climate scientist Lonnie Thompson has been studying Andean glaciers in Bolivia and Peru since the 1970s and during that time, he's witnessed the formation and disappearance of rivers and lakes as glaciers melt and water evaporates.
"It doesn't matter which tropical glacier you look at," he says, noting that 90 percent of the earth's tropical glaciers are found in Bolivia and Peru, "100 percent of them are retreating in today's world." In the first 15 years Thompson researched the Oori Kalis glacier, Quelccaya's largest outlet glacier has been retreating about 10 times faster (approximately 60 meters per year) than during the initial measurement period from 1963 to 1978 when it was about six meters per year. The accelerating rate of retreat of the Qori Kalis terminus is consistent with the observations of glaciers throughout the Andes.
Thompson worries about the Andean people who live among these melting glaciers (some of whom required the team of scientists to participate in a ceremonial sacrifice of a white alpaca to ask the gods' forgiveness for conducting their research on the sacred mountain). "These people are living on the edge of survival anyway, and of course they're the first to be influenced by changes in water resources," says Thompson.
cont.One or two years of strange rainfall patterns could be just that, and may not be an... more
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A panel of scientists told Congress the entire ice mass of Greenland will disappear from the world map if temperatures rise by as little as 2C –3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, with severe consequences for the rest of the world.The fall-out would be felt thousands of miles away from the Arctic, unleashing a global sea level rise of 23 feet. Low-lying cities such as New Orleans would vanish.A panel of scientists told Congress the entire ice mass of Greenland will disappear... more
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Nepal's top politicians got their doctors OK, boarded a helicopter and strapped on oxygen tanks to assemble 17,192 feet above sea level on Mount Everest Friday for an event dubbed the world's highest cabinet meeting.
Yes, the event was a publicity stunt, but one for an important cause: climate change. In Nepal, it's not just an abstract issue, it's one that could very seriously affect their country and their people. According to The Associated Press, scientists claim Himalayan glaciers are melting at alarming speed, creating lakes with walls that could burst and flood villages below. Melting ice and snow also make the routes for mountaineers less stable and more difficult to follow.
This most unusual Cabinet meeting, which was attended by the Prime Minster, his two deputies and 20 Cabinet members, was meant to catch the attention of folks attending next week's international climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. At the brief, chilly Cabinet meeting, members signed a commitment to tighten environmental regulations and expand the nation's protected areas.
"The Everest declaration was a message to the world to minimize the negative impact of climate change on Mount Everest and other Himalayan mountains," Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal told reporters.
Friday's Cabinet meeting was significantly speedier than normal, and many preparations were taken to ensure the safety of all involved. On Thursday, the group stayed overnight in the town of Lukla, about 9,180 feet high, to acclimatize to the higher elevation. They then traveled to Syangboche — 12,800 feet high — where the group, bundled in thick jackets, windproof gear and woolen hats, took the helicopter to Kalapathar, a flat area next to Everest's base camp. The meeting lasted a mere 20 minutes before the government officials were swooped away to lower ground.
But they certainly got their point across, and provided a powerful message about the seriousness of global warming.Nepal's top politicians got their doctors OK, boarded a helicopter and strapped... more
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As wildfires fires continue to rage in the Angeles National Forest, polar glaciers melt, ocean levels rise, and hurricanes grow more powerful as the world gets warmer, we are looking not only at The Age of Stupid, but the rise of Dystopian Cinema.
A Dystopian world is the opposite of a Utopian one, basically: usually miserable, poverty-stricken, and dehumanizing. Last year Wall-E proved a surprise blockbuster, while 2009 brought us Alex Proyas’s Knowing, starring Nic Cage as a man facing a grim forecast for the world, McG’s Terminator Salvation, set in the future as John Connor (Christian Bale) rages against the Machines, and Neill Blomkamp’s sleeper hit District 9 with its insect-like aliens living in a fetid South African slum. Still to come: Shane Acker’s animated 9, John Hillcoat’s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, the British documentary hybrid The Age of Stupid, and the latest sky-is-falling installment from Roland Emmerich, 2012: dystopian movies all.
If we’re not scared yet, we should be.
Filmmakers have been imagining the end of the world and what life would be like for its survivors since William Cameron Menzies’ 1936 H.G. Wells adaptation Things to Come. The nuclear age brought 1959’s On the Beach, followed decades later by George Miller’s 1979 Mad Max and its sequels, Ridley Scott’s 1982 Blade Runner, and more recently, Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men (2006) and Will Smith in Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend (2007).
Opening September 9, the animated 9 pits friendly humanoid robots against deadly monster-bots. Set to open October 16 after its debut at the Toronto Film Festival, The Road stars Viggo Mortensen as a father trying to protect his young son (Garret Dillahunt) in a hostile, fire-ravaged world inhabited by gangs of cannibals scavenging for food. Here’s the Apple trailer. (@ link)
UPDATE: Another movie coming up that fits the bill is the Hughes brothers’ Book of Eli, starring Denzel Washington as yet another warrior in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. The Guardian has theories about this trend.
The post-apocalyptic disaster movie is one strain of the genre. Armed with the latest VFX, will 2012 prove as successful on November 13 as Emmerich’s other destroy-the-Earth scenarios Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow? Here’s the 2012 trailer: (@ link)As wildfires fires continue to rage in the Angeles National Forest, polar glaciers... more
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Scientists from major countries including India have come out with a declaration demanding a region-by-region response to increased water scarcity and heightened hazards.
An international group of scientists from the US, India, China and Britain, in a declaration, have said that melting glaciers, weakening monsoon rains, less mountain snowpack and other effects of a warmer climate will lead to significant disruptions in the supply of water to highly populated regions of the world.
The group convened by University of California San Diego and the University of Cambridge added that this will especially be the case near the Himalayas in Asia and the Sierra Nevada Mountains of the western United States.
More than two dozen international water experts participated in the "Ice, Snow, and Water: Impacts of Climate Change on California and Himalayan Asia" workshop held at UC San Diego recently.
Workshop experts represented the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), the UN World Climate Research Programme, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the British Antarctic Survey, and the California Department of Water Resources as well as several American universities.
They noted heavy rains in Indian deserts, a recent drought in what is typically one of the wettest place on earth along the foot of the Himalayas, and other extreme weather events in recent decades.
Major rivers in both regions, like China's Yellow River and the Colorado River in the southwestern United States, routinely fail to reach the ocean now.
These extremes are signs of the climate and societally induced stresses that will be exacerbated in the future under continuing climate changes, threatening massive and progressive disruptions in the availability of drinking water to more than a billion people in the two regions.
"Solutions to immense problems have small beginnings and we began here," said Sustainability Solutions Institute Senior Strategist Charles Kennel. "I continue to be impressed by what a small group of dedicated people can achieve."
Workshop leaders plan to present the declaration at the 2009 Forum on Science and Technology in Society in Kyoto, Japan, taking place in October.
Research conducted at Scripps and at other research centers around the world have indicated that global warming and particulate air pollution, especially in the form of black carbon, are already disrupting natural supplies of water by raising air temperatures and by increasing the light absorption of snow and ice as pollutants darken the frozen surfaces.Scientists from major countries including India have come out with a declaration... more
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The polar bear has few natural predators but a daunting, and deadly, enemy: climate change. The five countries that ring the Arctic are Canada, Denmark (with Greenland), Norway, Russia and the United States are meeting in Norway to discuss how to save the polar bears.
Polar bears are dying because of the climate change, they are nearly all wiped out! One major reason is that polar bears are forced to swim more than they normally would due to the rapid melting snowThe polar bear has few natural predators but a daunting, and deadly, enemy: climate... more
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90 Rubber ducks dropped in Greenland glacier holes to track arctic icecap melting..
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A melting glacier in the Himalayas is the only thing protecting a community from a mountain deluge.A melting glacier in the Himalayas is the only thing protecting a community from a... more
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Five Arctic powers are holding a summit in Greenland on Wednesday to forestall a confrontation over the Polar region’s mineral resources and discuss how to protect its fragile environment.
When Russia planted its flag on the seabed 4km under the North Pole last August it raised fears of a rush to grab the Arctic’s mineral resources, particularly its oil and gas deposits, which could total up to a quarter of the world’s undiscovered reserves.
In the future, rising global temperatures could leave much of the Arctic ice-free in the summer, enabling easier exploration and opening up the North-west passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Soaring oil prices and improved technology also make exploration more viable.
Russia, Canada, Norway and Denmark (through the semi-autonomous territory of Greenland) are all collecting evidence to show their continental shelves extend towards the Arctic and that therefore their territorial waters should be extended beyond 200 miles offshore. The US has not signed the UN convention, making it impossible for it to even lodge a claim.
“I hope the meeting will send a clear political signal that the Law of the Sea is sufficient to sort out all the legal issues in play,” said Peter Taksoe-Jensen, undersecretary for legal affairs at the Danish foreign ministry.
Commercial interest in exploiting the Arctic is hotting up. Denmark recently attracted the likes of ExxonMobil and Chevron, the two biggest US energy groups, along with several smaller players, to explore off its western coast. Alaska, meanwhile, garnered aggressive bidding by Royal Dutch Shell, Europe’s biggest energy group, which earlier this year won the right to explore the remote part of the state’s Arctic North Slope.
Russia has promoted the development of its Arctic resources by appointing Total, the French oil major, as its partner for the giant Shtokman gas field. And on Tuesday the country’s lawmakers moved forward a bill that would cut exploration taxes for companies venturing into risky areas, including its Arctic regions of Yamal and Timan-Pechora.
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And there you have it. Waiting for the Earth to melt to carve up the spoils for themselves... Only, how irresponsible are they? Once the ice in the Arctic is gone we will enter an irreversible series of environmental consequences that will make their gold bars look pale in comparison. The fact that greed has now blinded so many to the potential consequences of this melting ice is a stark example of humanity as it stands now. Instead of countries working on signing a global pact to stop this now, they continue it to take it for themselves. Despicable.Five Arctic powers are holding a summit in Greenland on Wednesday to forestall a... more
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Changes to the Antarctic ice shelf are causing seals to fight for air and penguins to give up on their young.
These are the findings of a new study, which illustrates the direct impact climate change is having on the physiology, behaviour and survival of Antarctic species.
In 1998, ecologist and evolutionary biologist Associate Professor Terrie Williams of the University of California at Santa Cruz and her team began a study on Weddell seals in Antarctica.
Three years later, an enormous iceberg detached near Antarctica's McMurdo Sound. According to Williams and her colleagues, the event was caused by global warming, which has likely been melting and weakening ice at the poles.
The 10,900 square kilometre iceberg, named B-15, drifted westward and lodged on nearby Ross Island.
The impact upon the animals of the region was immediate.
"Our first clue that there was a problem was that the seals were not returning to their usual pupping areas, and that there were fewer seals even later in the season," says Williams.
She and her colleagues noticed that the ice around Ross Island did not experience its usual "break-out" that year.
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But we shouldn't care about what our actions are doing to other species,right? Afterall, humans are omnipotent over all the Earth... the evidence of that starkly seen based on its decay.
Changes to the Antarctic ice shelf are causing seals to fight for air and penguins to... more
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Many physical and ecological systems are being affected by the world's warming climate, researchers say.
Scientists from across the world applied statistical models to published data on changes in 829 physical systems and around 28,800 plant and animal systems —on both global and continental scales — some with data going back to 1970.
Their analysis, published in Nature last week (15 May), looked at whether these changes were related to temperature increase, other factors such as land use change, or simply natural variability.
Around 95 per cent of the physical systems studied responded to the world's warming trend. The analysis found that glaciers in every continent have been shrinking, permafrost is melting, the peak of river levels in spring is shifting, and lake and river temperatures are rising.
And 90 per cent of the changes in plants and animals were consistent with responses to temperature rise, including earlier blooming and leaf unfolding.
The authors found little evidence that natural variability or other environmental factors were significant, and conclude that climate change is affecting these systems.
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It's time to stop debating this and get down to work. Otherwise, we will have nothing to debate over. It will be gone.Many physical and ecological systems are being affected by the world's warming... more
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