Great Andean glacier 'will melt to nothing by 2012'

[Doondoo]

The principal glacier of the world’s biggest tropical ice-cap could disappear within five years as a result of global warming, one of the world’s leading glaciologists predicted yesterday.

The imminent demise of the Qori Kalis glacier, the main component of the Quelccaya ice cap in the Peruvian Andes, offers the starkest evidence yet of the effects of climate change, according to Lonnie Thompson, of Ohio State University.

Although scientists have known for decades that Qori Kalis and the other Quelccaya glaciers are melting, new observations indicate that the rate of retreat is increasing, Professor Thompson said. When he visits this summer, he expects to find that the glacier has halved in size since last year, and he believes that Qori Kalis will be gone within five years.

“This widespread retreat of mountain glaciers may be our clearest evidence of global warming as they integrate many climate variables,” Professor Thompson told the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in San Francisco. “Most importantly, they have no political agenda.”


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1392295.ece

[BootinUp]

1. He used the word political, he's just an alarmist. /sarcasm

[Abathar]

3. Actually he might be -

The snows on mt. Kilimanjaro are melting just as he said they are in the article, but the reason for that is strictly a local event, not global.

Humans have completely reduced the jungle at the base of the mountain for farming and wood harvesting. The moisture from that jungle was picked up by the updrafts and then deposited on the peak as snow. Remove the humidity and you remove the snow.

[thecrow]

4. Just more evidence

That humans are causing global warming

[bettyellen]

5. " In all but one case, snowfall has increased as ice volume has fallen.."

"A critical piece of evidence from almost fifty scientific expeditions to seven shrinking tropical ice-caps points to global warming as the reason for their decline. In all but one case, snowfall has increased as ice volume has fallen. More snow should mean advancing glaciers, unless rising temperatures are melting the extra precipitation and the ice tongues themselves."

the article refutes this.

[Morgana LaFey]

7. And just how did scientists PROVE that the self-evident

global warming everywhere else had NOTHING to do with that??

[Abathar]

8. By humidity and snowfall amounts

The temperatures on Mt kilimanjaro have only changed about 1 deg since we have been keeping record. The humidity and snowfall amounts are what has changed, and those are in direct relationship with the clear-cutting of the forests at the base of the mountain.

There are places on the earth that temperatures have not risen in any appreciable amounts at all, and others that it has. Mt. Kilimanjaro losing its snow is strictly a local event solely due to the deforestation of the jungle at the base of the mountain.

That is why I don't like people using it as an example of GLOBAL warming because it is so easy to refute as a case of LOCALIZED weather patterns easily proven by the humidity reading of the updraft winds.

[truthisfreedom]

15. Freepers are Neanderthals.

Anyone who believes that worldwide ice melt events aren't a direct result of global warming deserves the outcome. Those of us who want to reverse global warming (which is probably impossible at this point) are the sane ones.

[tkmorris]

10. Funny, a Freeper named Abathar thought the same thing

http://209.157.64.201/focus/f-news/1785901/posts

What a coincidence! You'd better change your username lest someone get the wrong idea.

[Judi Lynn]

11. Amazing. Did you read its personal profile? (Good grief.) Thank you. n/t

[Richard Steele]

13. Nice catch, TK! nm

[Mister Ed]

16. These two can't be the same person ; )

Abathar of FreeRepublic lives on a large parcel of land with a private lake in the middle of it
http://209.157.64.201/~abathar/

while Abathar of DU, on the other hand, lives on a large parcel of land with a private lake in the middle of it.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=2336681#2337756

[Judi Lynn]

17. Clearly two different Abathars! The DU Abathar would chase off the Freepers who would want to enjoy

their right to fish in his lake. Hope the other Abathar doesn't find out about this. He'd probably be beside himself with rage! He might go after him. It would be your fault for making this information public. :scared:

[hatrack]

25. I'm sitting here laughing my ass off!

Thanks, guys - this has been a truly refreshing thread!

:toast:

[wageslave71]

18. Good job

I couldn't help but check out some of those other Freepers' comments. They don't really like cold weather anyway. They can just buy ice if they need it, and just think of the money we'll all save on winter coats. Yippee!

That reminds me: I live in North Carolina. The trees and shrubs budded about New Year's (almost have leaves opening) and what we call Easter lilies came up about the same time (some have already bloomed). For the past week or two, we have had some colder weather, lows in the 20s, couple days in the teens. I passed a local Baptist church yesterday. The sign outside said: "So much for global warming."

Now I understand that our local warm winter may just be an anomaly, but that church sign shows me two things. 1) The Baptists are still straddling the fence between operating a religious or political organization. 2) When faced with a mountain of evidence contrary to what that preacher wants to believe, he somehow convinces himself that a sliver of evidence in concordance with his beliefs trumps the mountain.

[Toots]

2. We may make some archaeological discoveries that will revolutionize our thinking

The ancients built high up in the Andes as is evidenced by Cuzco and Tiahuanaca and LakeTiticaca. We may discover some astounding stuff that we otherwise would never know about..

[L. Coyote]

9. Unlikely humans arrived in Americas before the glacier formed.

If we study the effect on global climate of humans finding new continents, that might revolutionize our thinking!

Let's hope it isn't "Welcome to Mars" time yet!

[ohio2007]

12. What does Mars and global warming have in common ?

Mars is Melting

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/07aug_southpole.htm

[Solon]

26. You know this was seasonal right?

Mars has an axis tilt similar to Earth, so it goes through the same season Earth does, Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall. Granted, for Mars, the seasons are twice as long as on Earth, give or take a few months, but the principle is the same. In 2003, the Southern hemisphere of Mars goes through a Summer, and the Southern ice cap shrinks, and sometimes disappears, at the same time, the northern hemisphere is going through winter, and the Northern ice cap expands, mostly in the form of dry ice, which is what the southern ice cap is mostly made of.

Another factor is that Mars has a highly eccentric orbit compared to Earth, its less circular, in other words, so for part of its year, its even warm enough to vaporize water on its surface, though the atmosphere is too thin to allow the water to stay on the surface in liquid form. A combination of the two would make an ice cap disappear entirely, at least till the next winter for it. I don't see how Mars relates to Earth though, can you please enlighten me?

[momster]

6. Big Volcanic Eruption

is the only solution. A good-sized volcano would push enough 'junk' into the upper atmosphere to shield the earth from too much heat, perhaps giving us enough time to turn things around. Until that happens, we're all in the deep-deep. Some, like **, are in it head-downwards.

[ohio2007]

14. ...or nuclear "winter"

20 years ago the thought of world war fought with nukes would cool the climate so much that "green house gasses" would be need to save the planet.

So if we can't take the heat....drop a dozen nukes into the parched,dusty patches on earth

[truthisfreedom]

19. Oh... wait... I can sense it... this is what bushco and the neocons have planned!

Nuclear winter saves us!

[ohio2007]

21. ...or a giant rock from outer space saves the day

doom and gloomers also say money is needed to fund a 'space based weapon' that can detect,track and destroy objects that threaten our extinction by crashing through our ozone depleted atmosphere.

hey,
it could happen

[momster]

22. Alas

the fallout from the nuclear detonations would be a bad, bad business. The ashes from a big volcano would also cause tremendous devastation, loss of crops, hunger, lung problems, etc. But there's no easy or painless solution to Climate Change.

[ohio2007]

24. When all else fails, the only thing left to do is

pray it just never happens

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dpH2HookWo&mode=related&search=

for the "end of the world" doom and gloomers

[Xenotime]

20. Wow. 2012 is how long I have my no interest loan for.

[captain jack]

23. Now let's all drive to the theatre, see the movie about it, get

online and complain about it. Point fingers at all but ourselves and ultimately do nothing much to stop it. Donate five dollars and hope someone somewhere will do something to save us all. After all, that's about all that can be done about it. Well that's not enough. Just a suggestion or perhaps an observation.