African Ice Caps Disappearing (was Re: Healthy )
Peggy
Robin, was thinking about you climbing Kilimanjaro when I came across this
today. We need to wake up and smell the melting snow...
And, sluggard that I am, I understand what you mean about healthy and vital.
:)
Peggy
African Ice Caps Disappearing
allAfrica.com
From:
http://allafrica.com/stories/printable/200210180680.html
NEWS
October 18, 2002
Posted to the web October 18, 2002
By Tamela Hultman
Washington, DC
Like canaries in coalmines, which once signaled the existence of
life-threatening gases before human miners could perceive them, tropical
glaciers are a warning for our civilization. That is the message of a growing
body of research on climate change that has focused on melting glaciers and
ice caps on mountains in Africa and South America.
Lonnie G. Thompson, a prize-winning researcher at Ohio State University, has
been leading ice cap studies for two decades. His research offers a response
to climate-change skeptics, who argue that the earth has experienced vast
fluctuations in climate in the past and that there is no proof that human
actions are responsible for the current increase in global temperatures.
In a paper presented at the 2001 annual meeting of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science, Thompson revealed that some 82 percent of the
massive ice field on Tanzania's fabled Mount Kilimanjaro has disappeared since
it was first mapped in 1912.
This week, in the October 18 issue of the journal Science, Thompson and 10
colleagues have published the results of a study of six ice corps from
Kilimanjaro, which document climate and environmental variability over nearly
12,000 years. The period of the greatest historically recorded drought in
tropical Africa, some 4,000 years ago, was so severe that it has been
considered instrumental in the collapse of a number of civilizations,
including the Old Kingdom of Egypt. That drought was known to extend into the
Middle East and western Asia, and Thompson's research in the Andes of northern
Peru indicates that it may have been much more extensive.
Nevertheless, the findings of Thompson's team suggest that the current pace of
climate change in eastern equatorial Africa is without precedent in its
implications for human civilization. The melting of tropical glaciers is,
according to Thompson, "an indicator of massive changes taking place and a
response to the changes in climate." The evidence of the retreat and loss of
these large bodies of ice are part of the evidence that has convinced him that
global warming has begun to make an irreversible mark on the planet.
The ice of high-altitude glaciers is likely to be severely damaging to the
areas above which they tower. "The loss of these frozen reservoirs threaten
water resources for hydroelectric power production in the region, and for crop
irrigation and municipal water supplies," Thompson says.
What the governments of those countries are doing, he says, "is cashing in on
a bank account that was built over thousands of years but isn't being
replenished. Once it's gone, it will be difficult to re-form." Loss of those
water sources will likely result in a substantial increase in the use of
fossil fuels, resulting in the addition to the atmosphere of the greenhouse
gases that intensify global warming.
Other recently published research has documented a 40-percent shrinkage of the
ice cap on Mount Kenya since 1963. In September the government of Kenya issued
what the Nation newspaper in Nairobi called a "red alert", warning that
streams from the mountain's slopes were drying up. The paper reported that
Kenya's Central Provincial Water Engineer Tom Ogola revoked all water
"abstraction" permits, warning of a severe shortage of water everywhere. "Most
water is being consumed on the slopes by farmers," Ogola said. "Conflicts
could occur if water does not reach the downstream communities."
Thompson sees the potential impact on local communities as broader than the
crisis of water supplies. He points to African concerns that the loss of
Kilimanjaro's ice cap will be devastating to the tourist trade that brings
thousands of people to the region each year and fuels Tanzania's economy.
But he also sees the problem as an urgent challenge to scientists and policy
makers globally to tackle the issue of global warming. "We need to take the
first steps to reduce carbon dioxide emissions," he says. "We are currently
doing nothing."
today. We need to wake up and smell the melting snow...
And, sluggard that I am, I understand what you mean about healthy and vital.
:)
Peggy
African Ice Caps Disappearing
allAfrica.com
From:
http://allafrica.com/stories/printable/200210180680.html
NEWS
October 18, 2002
Posted to the web October 18, 2002
By Tamela Hultman
Washington, DC
Like canaries in coalmines, which once signaled the existence of
life-threatening gases before human miners could perceive them, tropical
glaciers are a warning for our civilization. That is the message of a growing
body of research on climate change that has focused on melting glaciers and
ice caps on mountains in Africa and South America.
Lonnie G. Thompson, a prize-winning researcher at Ohio State University, has
been leading ice cap studies for two decades. His research offers a response
to climate-change skeptics, who argue that the earth has experienced vast
fluctuations in climate in the past and that there is no proof that human
actions are responsible for the current increase in global temperatures.
In a paper presented at the 2001 annual meeting of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science, Thompson revealed that some 82 percent of the
massive ice field on Tanzania's fabled Mount Kilimanjaro has disappeared since
it was first mapped in 1912.
This week, in the October 18 issue of the journal Science, Thompson and 10
colleagues have published the results of a study of six ice corps from
Kilimanjaro, which document climate and environmental variability over nearly
12,000 years. The period of the greatest historically recorded drought in
tropical Africa, some 4,000 years ago, was so severe that it has been
considered instrumental in the collapse of a number of civilizations,
including the Old Kingdom of Egypt. That drought was known to extend into the
Middle East and western Asia, and Thompson's research in the Andes of northern
Peru indicates that it may have been much more extensive.
Nevertheless, the findings of Thompson's team suggest that the current pace of
climate change in eastern equatorial Africa is without precedent in its
implications for human civilization. The melting of tropical glaciers is,
according to Thompson, "an indicator of massive changes taking place and a
response to the changes in climate." The evidence of the retreat and loss of
these large bodies of ice are part of the evidence that has convinced him that
global warming has begun to make an irreversible mark on the planet.
The ice of high-altitude glaciers is likely to be severely damaging to the
areas above which they tower. "The loss of these frozen reservoirs threaten
water resources for hydroelectric power production in the region, and for crop
irrigation and municipal water supplies," Thompson says.
What the governments of those countries are doing, he says, "is cashing in on
a bank account that was built over thousands of years but isn't being
replenished. Once it's gone, it will be difficult to re-form." Loss of those
water sources will likely result in a substantial increase in the use of
fossil fuels, resulting in the addition to the atmosphere of the greenhouse
gases that intensify global warming.
Other recently published research has documented a 40-percent shrinkage of the
ice cap on Mount Kenya since 1963. In September the government of Kenya issued
what the Nation newspaper in Nairobi called a "red alert", warning that
streams from the mountain's slopes were drying up. The paper reported that
Kenya's Central Provincial Water Engineer Tom Ogola revoked all water
"abstraction" permits, warning of a severe shortage of water everywhere. "Most
water is being consumed on the slopes by farmers," Ogola said. "Conflicts
could occur if water does not reach the downstream communities."
Thompson sees the potential impact on local communities as broader than the
crisis of water supplies. He points to African concerns that the loss of
Kilimanjaro's ice cap will be devastating to the tourist trade that brings
thousands of people to the region each year and fuels Tanzania's economy.
But he also sees the problem as an urgent challenge to scientists and policy
makers globally to tackle the issue of global warming. "We need to take the
first steps to reduce carbon dioxide emissions," he says. "We are currently
doing nothing."
the_clevengers
--- In Unschooling-dotcom@y..., Peggy <peggy@l...> wrote:
in the crater of the previous extent of the glaciers. It was like
looking at the ghost of it's former presence.
Our Unitarian church did a very moving service solely on global
warming last month. Eye-opening and inspiring and kind-of scary. Wake
up and smell the melting snow indeed!
Blue Skies,
-Robin-
>across this
> Robin, was thinking about you climbing Kilimanjaro when I came
> today. We need to wake up and smell the melting snow...and vital.
>
> And, sluggard that I am, I understand what you mean about healthy
> :)Wow, isn't that sad? We could definitely see evidence when we were up
>
> Peggy
in the crater of the previous extent of the glaciers. It was like
looking at the ghost of it's former presence.
Our Unitarian church did a very moving service solely on global
warming last month. Eye-opening and inspiring and kind-of scary. Wake
up and smell the melting snow indeed!
Blue Skies,
-Robin-