spaceref.com — The European Alps could lose some 80 percent of their glacier cover by the end of this century, if summer air temperatures rise by three degrees Celsius [five degrees Fahrenheit]. And if temperatures increase by five degrees Celsius [nine degrees Fahrenheit], the Alps would become almost completely ice-free by 2100.
Jul 15, 2006 View in Crawl 4
splammoJul 16, 2006
I was just at glacier national park. Many of their glaciers have decreased by more than %50 in the last few decades. An independent study came in and ran a bunch of different models. The most conservative one estimated that all of the glaciers would be completely gone by 2030. That is 24 years, which is well within most of our lifetimes. I am not positive but I think Glacier National Park contains almost all (at least the majority) of the glaciers.@RadiantBeing - in a century we may have the solution, but 24 years may be a long time in technology but something needs to be implemented or changed well before then to solve this problem.
splammoJul 16, 2006
Think about where many of the glaciers are. Very severe terrain. I don't know how "usable" the land becomes.
fredratedJul 16, 2006
up your ass
tonyspencerJul 16, 2006
We know glaciers have come and gone before, from geology.The IPCC finds that generally, non-polar glaciers are retreating, although there are some local anomalies, and in some areas eg Norway and New Zealand, they are expanding, as are most polar glaciers, although as pointed out, less than half of the world's glaciers have been inventoried.Also, they showed that glacier behaviour lags behind temperature change, and whilst it's early stages for work on determining the amount, early analysis indicates lag periods of between 10 and 70 years, which means the melting does not follow any of the established temperature rise data sets: global warming would have to have started half a century before we see it occurring.Plus, high altitude glaciers are still retreating despite temperatures in the upper part of the atmosphere where they occur dropping over the same timeframe.The supposed temperature rise also seems very consistent with not only short term (1,500 year) cycles, but also the long term 110,000 years cycles (highs for which are due to occur right about now) as well as many of the intermediate term cycles.As in for the CO2 measurements, which rely on Greenland ice cores from GRIP and GISP 2, there is this from the GISP 2 site:"The C mean annual air temperature at Summit and minimal occurrence of melt layers throughout the record assure the in-situ preservation of a broad range of gaseous, soluble and insoluble measures of the paleoenvironment."However, I wonder what the effect of the temperature due to drilling, mechanical handling of the samples, and especially the fact that the cores no longer have the pressure of 3km of ice above them has on the pressure within the ice, such that many of the bubbles may therefore have been caused post-drilling, distorting the data...It's a bit like the fact that we can't look at most species of deep water marine life, because the pressure difference in bringing them to the surface destroys them.
shefftimJul 18, 2006
Have a look at this article that says the tropics are expanding:<a class="user" href="http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0526-climate.html">http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0526-climate.html</a>
shefftimJul 18, 2006
Have a look at this article that reports that Greenland is benefiting from warming:"The 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit rise in temperatures over the past 30 years has extended the growing season by two weeks while melting glaciers have exposed land for grazing and warmer seas enable fishermen to catch warm-water cod."<a class="user" href="http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0718-greenland.html">http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0718-greenland.html</a>
shefftimJul 18, 2006
Have a look at this article that reports that the tropics have expanded - based on the fact that the jet streams have moved 70 miles towards their respective poles.<a class="user" href="http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0526-climate.html">http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0526-climate.html</a>