Maybe 30 Years Left For Glaciers Atop Mexico's Tallest Mountains - Reuters

[hatrack]

MEXICO CITY - Glaciers that crown Mexico's tallest mountains and inspired Aztec legends of lost love and a snake god could disappear within a few decades, with scientists pointing to global warming as a cause of their demise. "We estimate the glaciers could last another 20 or 30 years," Hugo Delgado, a glaciologist at Mexico City's UNAM university, said this week.

Mexico's two remaining glacial fields hold some of the world's few tropical glaciers, which are also found in South America, Africa and Papua New Guinea but are melting fast as world temperatures rise. The rise in temperatures has accelerated in recent decades and most scientists believe the use of fossil fuels is to blame.

Glaciers are massive, slow-moving rivers of ice and in the tropics can only exist on the cold peaks of tall mountains. Most tropical glaciers, like those in Mexico, are much smaller than their cousins cloer to the poles. Scientists say glacial melt in the tropics could hit farmers and cities across Latin America by reducing water availability and hydropower generation.

On Iztaccihuatl, a dormant volcano and one of two white-capped peaks that can be seen from Mexico City, glaciers have shrunk about 70 percent since 1960, according to University of Zurich glaciologist Christian Huggel. "Iztaccihuatl's glaciers are doomed to death," said Huggel, who studies tropical glaciers around the world.

EDIT

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/43599/story.htm

Unless, of course, things move "faster than expected".

[redqueen]

1. Nearly all the other consequences seem to be occurring

faster than expected.

[kestrel91316]

2. 20 to 30 years is too optimistic, IMHO. I'm betting 10.

[GliderGuider]

3. Nah. 10 years would be faster than expected.

Oh wait...