MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Climate change devouring Andean glaciers and source of fresh water for millions
Climate change has shrunk Andean glaciers between 30% and 50% since the 1970s and could melt many of them away altogether in coming years, according to a study published on Tuesday in the journal Cryosphere. Read full article
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Disclaimer & comment rulesIf it's the fastest rate for 300 years then what was causing it 300 years ago? The CO2 produced by soldiers huffing and puffing their way around the world?
Jan 23rd, 2013 - 10:53 am - Link - Report abuse 0To believe it's AGW due to industrialisation it needs to be the most rapid since the thaw of the last ice age.
Well, we do complain about the weather in the UK, but it's fundamentally quite rainy, which is nice for drinking water, and the climate is good for growing things. So, we're not in a bad position really.
Jan 23rd, 2013 - 11:46 am - Link - Report abuse 0Moral to the tale... if South Americans insist on cutting down all their rainforests causing huge amounts of CO2 to be unfiltered from the atmosphere, then they shouldn't complain about their ice melting, lack of fertile land for crops or the fact everyone dies in a mega-drought.
What I hate about the AGW debate is that even the experts can't agree so how are we supposed to know.
Jan 23rd, 2013 - 12:09 pm - Link - Report abuse 0However they have never shown that even if it's true that reducing carbon emissions now will reverse the problem. I believe the money is better spent adapting to the situation while we master cleaner energy - not throwing cash into a bottomless pit.
@3 as with any kind of prediction of world events it's massively complex and so finding the contributing factors isn't easy. People have tried to use things like morphological analysis, and other simplifying tools to break up the issues and find what's actually contributing.
Jan 23rd, 2013 - 03:45 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Basic common sense, however, suggests that we are butchering the ecosystems on the earth at a rate unheard of in recent earth history and the world is getting warmer. And as with much research, there is proof of correlation but not the proof of causation. Not yet anyways, so we'd be better just make our footprint less until we find out either way.
@1 Idle
Jan 23rd, 2013 - 04:31 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Good question, my most likely answer would be the tail end of the deforestation of massive parts of Western Europe and the switch to burning coal for fuel that started in the late 16th century.
My concern is that adapting may prove more expensive in the long term than mitigating the damage until cleaner electricity becomes more readily available, both in terms of money and potentially lives as well. Better to do both.
Is it not true?
Jan 23rd, 2013 - 07:20 pm - Link - Report abuse 0That tree breath out air,[that we need to breath]
And breathe in carbon monoxide, that we breathe out,
So are humans not destroying the very thing that keeps us alive,
Whilst still breathing out, the very thing that kills us,
Or am I barking up the wrong tree.
.
Well like Dave says, humanity is a bit of a pestilence. Some more than others.
Jan 23rd, 2013 - 07:43 pm - Link - Report abuse 0http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/9815862/Humans-are-plague-on-Earth-Attenborough.html
6 briton
Jan 23rd, 2013 - 08:09 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Errr - not quite.
Trees (like nearly all plants) absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen during the day through the process of photosynthesis but absorb oxygen and release carbon dioxide at night. However those two processes are not balanced. It produces roughly 10 times more oxygen during the day than it absorbs during the night. That's why forests are described as “carbon sinks” - they absorb carbon from the atmosphere and store it.
8 Idlehands
Jan 23rd, 2013 - 08:30 pm - Link - Report abuse 0thank you for that,
now i understand it a bit better,
thanks.
@3 97% of scientists agree that it's happening.
Jan 24th, 2013 - 05:29 am - Link - Report abuse 010 Ayayay
Jan 24th, 2013 - 01:16 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Where does that figure come from?
Climate was cooling in the 70's, warming in the 90's and nowadays they prefer to call it “Changing”
It seems to be based on the politics of fear like global terrorism is.
I don't really care one way or the other as I doubt it will affect me much.
In other news those spawny Australians have just discovered 233 billion barrels of oil. How's that for a lucky day?
It is all a bunch of B/S, the world goes through cycles we happen to be hot now ( actually I guess it is leveling off) and soon enough we will be cold.
Jan 24th, 2013 - 05:03 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Good gracious they used to farm in Greenland! Now it seems to be coming back to that.
The problem is the rich countries can mitigate the problems to continue with a nice lifestyle and the poor countries citizens will either migrate (like they have done since the beginning of our existence) or die.
The Romans used to grow grapes for wine in Scotland and the gulf stream still flowed at that temperature.
Jan 25th, 2013 - 10:06 am - Link - Report abuse 0Mankind is badly polluting the environment but AGW seems to be the least of our environmental worries. Why is the ocean of waste in the Pacific less important? Or the toxicity of the air in cities? Or the destruction of the rainforests? Or the hunting of endangered species? Overfishing? Pesticides in groundwater? The list is endless.
If I were to guess they've hit on AGW as it is a question of faith and a better cash cow.
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