 Poster: A snowHead
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The world’s mountain glaciers are thawing at record rates, and some could disappear altogether in the coming decades, a study by the World Glacier Monitoring Service has found. The study, which included data from 30 glaciers in nine mountainous regions, found that the average rate of melting and thinning of the ice almost tripled in 2006, to 1.4m, from 0.5m in 2005. Many of the glaciers affected feed major rivers and water supplies....
The Himalayan glaciers, the main water source for roughly 750 million people in Asia, are among the low-latitude glaciers that could be lost. In northern India, the Ganga, Indus, Brahmaputra and other rivers may soon become seasonal water flows, the report said. In the US, about 40 per cent of the water supply to southern California is likely to be vulnerable within the next 20 years, as rising temperatures lead to reductions in snow pack in the Sierra Nevada mountains and the Colorado River basin.
The World Glacier Monitoring Service is based at the University of Zurich and supported by the United Nations Environment Program.
See: http://www.geo.unizh.ch/wgms/mbb/mbb9/sum06.html
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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I would have thought that flow from glaciers was seasonal; that their effect (in general) would be to smooth out variations in precipitation between rather than within years. In any case, it's nothing that building reservoirs wouldn't fix.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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kitenski, not that website again! - I wouldn't be surprised if it was written by the same guy who wrote the unproven stuff in the Daily Express recently, claiming that it was from the NOAA
I notice that one of the "newest" pages on it - from 2007 - looks like it is referring to some new study in India. The link is dead, but it is to a document from 2001. Hardly "new"! 
Edit: His website says that the Silvretta in Switzerland is growing (but provides no link to back that up), the article above directly contradicts that.
Same with the Helm and Place in Canada
...also with the Norwegian ones on his list, etc.
I wonder when he plans to update it?
Last edited by You need to Login to know who's really who. on Wed 19-03-08 15:49; edited 1 time in total
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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using my own pea-sized brain i'd say that glaciers have been retreating at vast rates since the end of the last ice age. If they didn't, i wouldn't be sat where i am now and all of Scotland's majestic glens would still be covered in hundreds of feet of ice.
the point i'm making is that the media go on and on about stuff like this and imply that glaciers should never melt. no-one can prove that what's happening now isn't entirely natural.
It's an easy story when the other most imortant thing going on is an ex-beatle's divorce case!
That said, i do believe that the human race is out of control and the end is nigh  ... just not for another few hundred thousand years.
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kitenski, that "world climate report" seems very focused on the depth of ice, but carefully avoids mentioning the acreage - I wonder why?
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Just skimmed the intro: "with long-term data series back to 1980"??
Hardly "long term" in climatological terms is it now??
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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I'm sure the underlying fact from the first article is correct - that the majority of the world's glaciers are currently shrinking. The interesting and controversial questions are how the current shrinking compares with previous episodes (eg during Roman and medieval times), the degree to which it is caused by man-made greenhouse gases, whether or not it will continue...
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Well the data is up to 2006, the step change in the sun was october 2005. Be interesting to see the last couple of years data and the next few years going forward to see if the shrinking is slowing or even about to reverse.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Grimsby Ranger, indeed: I reckon the average glacier carries climate information (temperature and precipitation) for several decades.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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This is a No Brainer.
We are coming to the end of the last Ice Age. Glaciers will seem to melt much faster at the end.
It is a bit like water going the plug hole. It doesnt seem to go down very fast to start but at the end it dissapears very quick.
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stanton, I'm atraid that that sci theory may need a little more supporting evidence.
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You know it makes sense.
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stanton, technically we are in an ice age (which is defined by the presence of polar ice caps). Within the current ice age, we are in an "interglacial period". There have been several in the current ice age. Within the current interglacial period (known as the Holocene), there have been several smaller oscillations of climate (with peaks of temperature such as the current warm period, the medieval warm period and the Roman warm period - and a few before that). The Holocene has lasted about 12,000 years which is about the average for an interglacial period. So, if the earth is left to its own devices, the ice sheets might advance across most of the British Isles and countries of a similar latitude any millenium now.
All from memory, so some of the details might be a bit out.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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| laundryman wrote: |
stanton, technically we are in an ice age (which is defined by the presence of polar ice caps). Within the current ice age, we are in an "interglacial period". There have been several in the current ice age. Within the current interglacial period (known as the Holocene), there have been several smaller oscillations of climate (with peaks of temperature such as the current warm period, the medieval warm period and the Roman warm period - and a few before that). The Holocene has lasted about 12,000 years which is about the average for an interglacial period. So, if the earth is left to its own devices, the ice sheets might advance across most of the British Isles and countries of a similar latitude any millenium now.
All from memory, so some of the details might be a bit out. |
My point stands & there is nothing we can do about it (melting glaciers). The only thing we can do is prepare for flooding which the Dutch are doing.
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Poster: A snowHead
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| stanton wrote: |
| My point stands. |
Not the one about coming to the end of the "last ice age". Present day temperatures, and even greater, were reached very quickly at the beginning of the current Holocene interglacial period, which is in any case just a milder episode within an ice age.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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I'm just back from Gressoney and in the hotel there was a photo of the glacier at the top of the valley taken in the 50's. In fairness it was a Summer photo but as far as I could see the glacier seems bigger now than then.
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FAQ
. When we do come out of the interglacial period there'll be ice sheets virtually to the med, most of the northern hemisphere will be unhabitable. All those lovely Alpine villages sat in the valleys will be crushed under the advancing glaciers. Vast amounts of the rest of the world turn into deserts, it won't be a pleasant place to live then 
things are just starting to happen around the world now to suggest the warming we've experienced recently is slowing or even about to reverse. The sun is behaving in a fashion that hasn't been witnessed in living memory, are the two linked? We'll just have to wait and see. I wouldn't be surprised to see the AGW caused by the increase in CO2 theory completely blown out of the water in the next decade or so. I just hope it doesn't get too cold too quickly, the earth's been through these periods many times before.