Joe

Like all documents of this nature from ecopolitical organisations, this
has to be read with circumspection. These guys tend to extract the data
that suit their arguments from diverse documents and ignore those that
don't, giving a one-sided picture.

I'm not saying that they are wrong, simply partial.

I lived in Switzerland for nearly 40 years and used to go regularly to
Saas Fee, in the Valaisan Alps. Two large glaciers feed this valley.
I've observed the retreat of these two glaciers and I've been able to
compare photos taken in the early 1960s with recent ones (also earlier
ones taken by others, right back to the 1850s). In the mid-1800s, these
glaciers came down to the edge of the alp where the villagers grew their
produce, and there is an enormous moraine there, where trees (larch) are
beginning to become established. Today, as a guess, the end is 300 m
higher in altitude and 1 km horizontally. This is very striking. Another
such example is the Furka glacier which reached as far as the hamlet of
Gletsch 150 years ago (the name actually means glacier). Today, you can
hardly see the glacier from Gletsch. However, this is not universal. I
can't quote figures offhand, but I can quote a fact, which I should be
able to substantiate if I had time to do a little research. Not all the
Swiss glaciers are retreating and, in fact, a few are actually growing.
Notwithstanding, the majority are retreating. I quote this purely to
show that articles such as you quote are often too categorical.

Best regards,

Brian



[log in to unmask] wrote:
>
> I have not had time tolook for and check the references yet but
> thought there might be some interest here for those who have not yet
> seen this item.
>
> Best to all,
> Joe
>
> Eco-Economy Update 2002-3
> For Immediate Release
> March 12, 2002
> Copyright Earth Policy Institute 2002
>
> EARTH'S ICE MELTING FASTER THAN PROJECTED
> http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update8.htm
>
> Lester R. Brown
>
> Several new studies report that the earth's ice cover is melting
> faster than
> projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in
> its
> landmark report released in early 2001. Among other things, this means
> that
> the IPCC team, which did not have the ice melt data through the 1990s,
> will
> need to revise upward its projected rise in sea level for this
> century--currently estimated to range from 0.09 meters to 0.88 meters
> (from
> 4 to 35 inches).
>
> A study by two scientists from the University of Colorado's Institute
> of
> Arctic and Alpine Research shows that melting of the large glaciers on
> the
> west coast of Alaska and in northern Canada is accelerating. Earlier
> data
> indicated that the melting of glaciers in these areas was raising sea
> level
> by 0.14 millimeters per year, but the new data for the 1990s indicate
> that
> the more rapid melting is now raising sea level by 0.32 millimeters a
> year,
> more than twice as fast.
>
> The Colorado study is reinforced by a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)
> study,
> which indicates glaciers are now shrinking in all 11 of Alaska's
> glaciated
> mountain ranges. An earlier USGS study reported that the number of
> glaciers
> in Glacier National Park in the United States has dwindled from 150 in
> 1850
> to fewer than 50 today. They project the remaining glaciers will
> disappear
> within 30 years.
>
> Another team of USGS scientists, which uses satellite data to measure
> changes in the area covered by glaciers, describes an accelerated
> melting of
> glaciers in several mountainous regions, including the South American
> Andes,
> the Swiss Alps, and the French and Spanish Pyrenees.
>
> Glaciers are shrinking faster throughout the Andes. Professor Lonnie
> Thompson of Ohio State University reports that for the Quri Kalis
> glacier,
> which is located on the west side of the Quelccaya ice cap in the
> Peruvian
> Andes, the annual shrinkage from 1998 to 2000 was three times that
> which
> occurred between 1995 and 1998. And that, in turn, was nearly double
> the
> annual rate of retreat from 1993 to 1995. Thompson also projects that
> the
> large Quelccaya ice cap will disappear entirely between 2010 and 2020.
>
> The vast snow/ice mass in the Himalayas, which ranks third in fresh
> water
> stored, after Antarctica and Greenland, is also retreating. Although
> data
> are not widely available for the Himalayan glaciers, those that have
> been
> studied indicate an accelerating retreat. For example, data for the
> 1990s
> show that the Dokriani Bamak Glacier in the Indian Himalayas retreated
> by 20
> meters in 1998, more than during the preceding five years.
>
> Thompson has also studied Kilimanjaro, observing that between 1989 and
> 2000,
> Kilimanjaro lost 33 percent of its ice field. He projects that it
> could
> disappear entirely within the next 15 years. (See table
> http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update8.htm.)
>
> Both the North and the South Poles are showing the effects of climate
> change. The South Pole is covered by a continent the size of the
> United
> States. The Antarctic ice sheet, which is 1.5 miles thick in some
> places,
> contains over 90 percent of the world's fresh water.
>
> While this vast ice sheet is relatively stable, the ice shelves--the
> portions of the ice sheet that extend into the surrounding seas--are
> fast
> disappearing. A team of U.S. and British scientists reported in 1999
> that
> the ice shelves on either side of the Antarctic Peninsula are in full
> retreat. From mid-century through 1997, these areas lost 7,000 square
> kilometers as the ice sheet disintegrated. But then within scarcely
> one year
> they lost another 3,000 square kilometers. Delaware-sized icebergs
> that have
> broken off are a threat to ships in the area. The scientists attribute
> the
> accelerated ice melting to a regional temperature rise of 2.5 degrees
> Celsius (4.5 degrees Fahrenheit) since 1940.
>
> While the South Pole is covered by a huge continent, the North Pole is
>
> covered by the Arctic Ocean. Arctic sea ice is melting fast. Over the
> last
> 35 years, the ice has thinned 42 percent--from an average of 3.1
> meters to
> 1.8 meters. It has also shrunk by 6 percent since 1978. Together,
> thinning
> and shrinking have reduced the mass of sea ice by half. A team of
> Norwegian
> scientists projects that the Arctic Sea could be entirely ice-free
> during
> the summer by mid-century, if not before.
>
> If this melting materializes as projected, the early explorers' dream
> of a
> northwest passage--a shortcut from Europe to Asia--could be realized.
> Unfortunately, what was a dream for them could be a nightmare for us.
>
> If the Arctic Ocean becomes ice-free in the summer, it would not
> affect sea
> level because the ice is already in the water, but it would alter the
> regional heat balance. When sunlight strikes ice and snow, most of it
> is
> reflected back into space, but if it instead strikes land or open
> water,
> then much of the energy in the light is absorbed and converted into
> heat,
> leading to higher temperatures. This is what computer modelers refer
> to as a
> positive feedback loop, a situation where a trend creates conditions
> that
> reinforce itself.
>
> Richard Kerr, writing in Science, says summer "would convert the
> Arctic
> Ocean from a brilliantly white reflector sending 80 percent of solar
> energy
> back into space into a heat collector absorbing 80 percent of
> [incoming
> sunlight]." The discovery of open water at the North Pole by an ice
> breaker
> cruise ship in August 2000 provides further evidence that the melting
> process may now be feeding on itself.
>
> This prospect of much warmer summers in the Arctic is of concern
> because
> Greenland, which has the world's second largest ice sheet, is largely
> within
> the Arctic Circle. In a Science article in 2000, a team of U.S.
> scientists
> from NASA reported that the vast Greenland ice sheet is starting to
> melt.
> Greenland is gaining some ice in higher elevations in its northern
> reaches,
> but it is losing much more at the lower elevations along its southern
> and
> southeastern coasts. This huge island of 2.2 million square
> kilometers--three times the size of Texas--is experiencing a net loss
> of 51
> billion cubic meters of ice each year, which is raising sea level by
> 0.13
> millimeters per year, according to the NASA team.
>
> The team also reports that the melting there appears to be
> accelerating
> because the ice sheet on its southern and eastern edges has thinned by
> more
> than a meter a year since 1993. If all the ice on Greenland were to
> melt, it
> would raise sea level by 7 meters (23 feet), but even under a high
> temperature rise scenario, it could take many centuries for it to melt
>
> completely.
>
> The accelerated melting of ice, particularly during the last decade or
> so,
> is consistent with the accelerating rise in temperature that has
> occurred
> since 1980. With the IPCC projecting global average temperature to
> rise by
> 1.4 to 5.8 degrees Celsius (2.5 to 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit) during
> this
> century, the melting of ice will likely continue to gain momentum.
>
> Our generation is the first to have the capacity to alter the earth's
> climate. We are also, therefore, the first to wrestle with the ethical
>
> question of whether the capacity to change the planet's climate gives
> us the
> right to do so.