The melting mountains

[cal04]

Joe Simpson, climber and author of 'Touching The Void', reveals how climate change is destroying the world's most spectacular landscapes

Already climatologists have predicted the complete failure of the Scottish ski industry due to lack of snow within 20 years and the Alpine ski industry within 50 years. Many Alpine ski resorts would already be out of business but for the snow machines. Because the best Alpine ski fields and lift systems are above the crucial permafrost altitude of 8,202 feet, it could spell the end of the ski industry as we know it, let alone the more esoteric world of mountaineering. When you consider that one sixth of Austria's gross domestic product comes from Alpine tourism, the effects of permafrost meltdown could be far more wide-ranging than just screwing up our winter sports holidays.

Climatologists, geologists and civil engineers from all over the world are making disturbingly similar reports. Glaciers in Antarctica are thinning twice as fast as they were a decade ago and this may destabilise the west Antarctic ice sheet, which, if melted, contains enough ice to raise sea levels by as much as five metres. A gigantic slab, the Larsen B ice shelf, has already fallen off its eastern side. Ablation rates of glaciers are speeding up all over the world. Retreating glaciers in the Peruvian Andes are adding huge amounts of melt water to already overburdened mountain lakes, greatly increasing the risk of dam collapses and alluvion avalanches. There are passes in the Cordillera Real in Bolivia that just 20 years ago were glaciated, yet now are rocky moraine fields.

Only two weeks ago it was announced that Kilimanjaro in Tanzania would lose its year-round mantle of snow within 10 years. One-third of Kilimanjaro's ice field has disappeared in the past 12 years. In Iceland ice cores have shown that temperatures are at their highest since the arrival of the Vikings. The past two years have been the hottest since records began in 1822. At this rate of melting, all the ice will be gone in 200 years. In the Arctic, a region of sea ice the size of France and Germany has melted away in the past 30 years and there are fears that the inflow of fresh water could possibly lead to the shutdown of the Gulf Stream, which bathes Europe in warm water. This would plunge Britain into winters that would be the equivalent of those in northern Canada. It wouldn't save the ski industry, not unless you like skiing in conditions of 40C below.

Boreholes sunk to monitor ice temperatures in Switzerland, Austria, the Dolomites, the German Alps, the Sierra Nevada and the Abisko mountains in Swedenn have all recorded temperature increases of between 0.5 and 1C during the past 15 years. The ground temperature in the Alps has risen considerably over the past decade. As air temperatures have increased, the effects below ground are being magnified fivefold. A test borehole dug in Murtel in southern Switzerland has revealed that sub-surface soils have warmed by more than 1C since 1990. Increasing evaporation caused by warmer summers is also triggering thicker falls of winter snow, which insulate the soil and keep it warm. All in all it is not looking good.

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http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article325016.ece

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. I saw the scar of the rockslide on the Dru myself this summer

It is huge - probably over 1000 ft long.

[Dogmudgeon]

2. "At this rate of melting ..."

It won't take 200 years, because the rate itself is increasing. Fifty years might even be stretching it, and twenty is conceivable if the feedback mechanism is strong enough.

We do know from prehistoric proxy data (proxies in this case are things like ice cores and fossilized tree rings) that climate changes can be very abrupt, taking as little as a few years. It's not quite as fast as the fantasized scenario in The Day After Tomorrow, but going from Waterworld to Ice Planet Zero in five, or even fifty years, would be a calamity beyond imagining.

But there is some good news. With a little advance planning and a "can-do" mindset, this calamity doesn't have to be a working holiday for the Grim Reaper. Coordinating mass migrations, changes in food production, and dealing with the economic losses is doable and could make a climate flip-flop survivable.

And at the very least, it would teach us the value of our planet and why we ought to treat it with some respect.

--p!