TOP: Original photograph taken in 1928 of the Upsala Glacier. BOTTOM: January 2004, composite image of Upsala Glacier, Patagonia, Argentina.
But no cynical columnist, fantasy copywriter or fiction-writer
can deny that there are a number of research papers on the whole
issue, and by leading research and academic groups world wide and
except from a certain gentleman from the wild-wild west, this is
the biggest global environmental concern shared by leaders around
the world and their populations .
Recently, a senior and well respected Indian media columnist, as
is his wont, took another opportunity to take a pot-shot at
Greenpeace. Literally pooh-poohing our photographic evidence of
Patagonia glacier retreat.
To
quote from a colleague of ours, who was part of the Patagonia
expedition to document Glacier retreats, "The last paragraph
triggered me however. As you may know, I was the campaigner onboard
during the Patagonia expedition. It is true that a few glaciers are
stationary in Chili and Argentina. It is also true that 1 glacier
(perito Moreno) is advancing. However scientific studies show that
every year 42(!) kubic kilometers of ice is melting of. All the
other glaciers are in retreat. If your journalist goes to http://www.cecs.cl/web/cecs_index.php?area=cecs&dep=glaciologia&idioma=en&pagina=publicacion&id=13
he/she will find a reference to an article in Science describing
the whole thing, including the fact that the melting of the
glaciers is accelerating."
More Facts!
The Arctic Climate Impacts Assessment Report of the Arctic
Council, The International Arctic Science Committee and published
by the Cambridge University Press, is an interesting read on the
findings of the Climate Impacts Assessment committee on the extent
of the impacts to the Arctic region due to climate change and
global warming.
http://www.acia.uaf.edu/
Danielle Murray of the Earth Policy Institute has compiled a
list of select examples of Ice Melt around the world Feb 2005,
which gives a fairly comprehensive picture of the Glacier Retreats
and Ice Melts in important locations, around the Globe.
SELECTED EXAMPLES OF ICE MELT AROUND THE WORLD
Name : Arctic Sea
Ice
Location : Arctic
Ocean
Measured Loss :
Year-round ice area declined by 9 percent per decade from 1978 to
2003. The smallest summer ice extents in recorded history all
occurred in the past three years (15 percent below average in 2002,
12 percent in 2003, and 13 percent in 2004). Summers could be ice
free by the end of the century.
Name : Greenland Ice
Sheet
Location :
Greenland
Measured Loss :
Greenland's melt region expanded by 17 percent between 1992 and
2002. Annual ice loss form Greenland is sufficient to raise the
global sea level by an average of 0.13 millimeters per year.
Name : Permafrost
Location : Arctic
Measured Loss : Arctic
permafrost has warmed by up to 2 degrees Celsius in recent decades.
About 15 percent of the Arctic tundra has already been lost since
the 1970s.
Name : Amundsen
Sea
Location : West
Antarctica
Measured Loss :
Glaciers feeding into the Amundsen Sea are discharging enough ice
and water to raise sea levels more than 0.2 millimeters per
year.
Name : Larsen B Ice
Shelf
Location : Antarctic
Peninsula
Measured Loss :
Antarctic Peninsula ice shelves have retreated by an average of 300
square kilometers each year since 1980. Since the collapse of the
3,250 cubic kilometer Larsen B Ice Shelf in 2002, local glaciers
have been moving 2-6 times faster, releasing more ice into the
sea.
Name : Mt. Everest
Location : Himalayas,
South Asia
Measured Loss :
Glaciers on Mt. Everest retreated some 5 kilometers in the past 50
years.
Name : Tien Shan
Mountains
Location : Central
Asia
Measured Loss :
Glaciers have shrunk by 30 percent since 1955, losing up to 2 cubic
kilometers of ice per year.
Name : Caucasus
Mountains
Location : Russia
Measured Loss :
Glacial volume has declined by 50 percent in the past century.
Name : Alps
Location : Western
Europe
Measured Loss : Alpine
glaciers thinned at an average rate of 0.65 meters per year from
1980 to 2000. The record loss of 1.6 meters in 1998 was blown away
by 3 meters of average thinning from the extreme heat of 2003.
Alpine glaciers are likely to contain only half their 1970s volume
by 2025, dwindling to 5 percent by the end of the century.
Name : Kilimanjaro
Location :
Tanzania
Measured Loss : Ice
fields on Africa's highest mountain shrank by 80 percent over the
past century, with 33 percent from 1989 to 2000 alone. The ice cap
may disappear completely by 2015.
Name : Alaskan
Glaciers
Location : Alaska,
United States
Measured Loss : 1,987
out of 2,000 glaciers in southeast Alaska are retreating. Since the
mid-1990s, Alaskan glaciers have been thinning by 1.8 meters a
year, over three times as fast as during the preceding 40
years.
Name : Glacier
National Park
Location : Rocky
Mtns., United States
Measured Loss : Since
1910, more than two thirds of its glaciers and about 75 percent of
glacier area has disappeared. Remaining glaciers may melt
completely by 2030.
Name : Chacaltaya
Glacier
Location : Bolivia
Measured Loss :
Estimated to be only 2 percent of its former size. It lost
two-thirds of its mass in the 1990s alone, and may disappear
completely by 2010.
Name : Patagonia
Icefields
Location : Chile and
Argentina
Measured Loss : From
1968 to 2000, lost ice at a rate equivalent to a sea level rise of
0.042 mm per year. Average thinning rates more than doubled that
amount from 1995 to 2000.
Name : Carstensz &
West Meren Glaciers
Location : Papua
Province, Indonesia
Measured Loss :
Carstensz shrunk by 80 percent between 1942 and 2000. West Meren
disappeared entirely in the late 1990s after a retreat of more than
2,600 meters since its first survey in 1936.
More Punch!
The United Nations Environment Programme Grid Arendal has
released some recent reports with detailed illustrations of the
Impact of Global Warming.
http://www.grida.no/
What's more that we want to prove that Climate Change is
happening and not just a hype created by Greens.