Giant Antarctic Ice Shelf Collapses

by Janet Ritz
and the Environmentalist Staff

The National Ice and Snow Institute (NISDC) has released a report documenting a dramatic and troubling collapse of a large portion (nine times the size of Manhattan) of the Wilkins Ice Shelf in Antarctica.

Satellite imagery from the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder reveals that a 13,680 square kilometer (5,282 square mile) ice shelf has begun to collapse because of rapid climate change in a fast-warming region of Antarctica.

The Wilkins Ice Shelf it's a broad plate of permanent floating ice on the southwest Antarctic Peninsula, about 1,000 miles south of South America. In the past 50 years, the western Antarctic Peninsula has experienced the biggest temperature increase on Earth, rising by 0.5 degree Celsius (0.9 degree Fahrenheit) per decade. NSIDC Lead Scientist Ted Scambos, who first spotted the disintegration in March, said, "We believe the Wilkins has been in place for at least a few hundred years. But warm air and exposure to ocean waves are causing a break-up."

The ice shelf began its visible collapse on February 28th, when a huge iceberg (41 x 2.5 kilometers - 25.5 by 1.5 miles) broke away, triggering a wider collapse of 405 square kilometers (160 square miles) of the shelf.



The edge of the shelf crumbled into the sky-blue pattern of exposed deep glacial ice that has become characteristic of climate-induced ice shelf break-ups such as the Larsen B in 2002. A narrow beam of intact ice, just 6 kilometers wide (3.7 miles) was protecting the remaining shelf from further breakup as of March 23.

"The Wilkins disintegration won't raise sea level because it already floats in the ocean, and few glaciers flow into it." Scambos said. "However, the collapse underscores that the Wilkins region has experienced an intense melt season. Regional sea ice has all but vanished, leaving the ice shelf exposed to the action of waves."

Scientists have tracked this event with great interest, both for the indications of warming, the loss of habitat and the concern that other ice shelves, similarly impacted, do have the potential to significantly raise sea level. NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and data from ICESat alerted scientists to the ice shelf's collapse in mid-March...

Photo Credit (1): National Snow and Ice Data Center; Photo Credit(2): National Snow and Ice Data Center/NASA

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U.N. Climate Panel Warns of 'Abrupt' Warming

by Janet Ritz

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will issue a report this weekend that warns of "abrupt and irreversible" impacts unless world leaders address climate change this year.

In its strongest statement to date, the panel warns of a potential temperature rise up to 6.4C, sea level rise up to 43cm, Arctic summer ice to disappear within the second half of this century, and an increase to the increase we're already seeing in heat waves and tropical storm intensity.

The report condenses information from the three major reports produced by the IPCC:

Working Group I: Physical Science Basis
Working Group II: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
Working Group II: Mitigation of Climate Change

The Synthesis Report will be introduced by U.N. Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, in a statement to the 450 delegates of the 27th Session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The Session is being held this week in Valencia, Spain, a region which is currently experiencing a loss of available water due to its diminishing reservoir (see: 43 percent of the United States).

The Synthesis Report will cover the following topics:

• Observed changes in climate and its effects
• Causes of change
• Climate change and its impacts in the near and long term under different scenarios
• Adaptation and mitigation options and responses, and the inter-relationship with sustainable development, at global and regional levels
• The long term perspective: scientific and socio-economic aspects relevant to adaptation and mitigation, consistent with the objectives and provisions of the Convention, and in the context of sustainable development
• Robust findings, key uncertainties

"Climate change is here, it's impacting our lives and our economies, and we need to do something about it," commented Hans Verolme, director of the climate change programme with the environmental group WWF. "After this report, there are no politicians left who can argue they don't know what climate change is or they don't know what to do about it."

Given the unexpected growth in C02 emissions due to the loss of carbon sinks, the aforementioned drought conditions in 43 percent of the U.S., the category-four cyclone that just hit low-lying Bangladesh, it is should not be surprising that the UN report warns of millions that could be affected by rising temperatures and up to a third of all species that could be lost.

Not surprising, perhaps. Alarming, heartbreaking, frightening and frustrating, definitely, and, according to the IPCC and the United Nations, an impact that may happen abruptly and irreversibly if world leaders don't act to counteract climate change at the U.N. IPCC meeting scheduled for Bali this December.

Global warming drives Alps town to shut ski area

by Janet Ritz

Harbinger of things to come (or go, as is the case here):

MSNBC is reporting that climate change has forced the Alps ski resort town of Abondance, France, to shut down its ski operations and climate change experts warn that other resorts will follow:

BONDANCE, France - Muddy slopes, slushy peaks, unused lifts — this town in the French Alps is living out the nightmare of many a ski resort in a century scientists say is doomed to keep getting warmer.

The city council of Abondance — its name a cruel reminder of the generous snowfall it once enjoyed — voted last month 9-6 to shut down the ski area that has been its economic raison d'etre for more than 40 years. The reason: not enough snow.

Abondance is the French Alps' first ski station to fall apparent victim to global warming. It will almost certainly not be the last.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...

As reported in earlier posts, growing warming is impacting diverse regions.

In the Alps, it's hit the ski slopes:

Gerald Giraud of the Snow Study Center of Meteo-France at Grenoble said altitudes of 3,000-4,900 feet are where "global warming will pose the greatest problems." Even taking into account irregular weather cycles, snowfall levels fell 25 inches on average between 1960 and 2007 across the French Alps, he said.

His center noted a rise in average temperature of 2.7 to 3.3 degrees Fahrenheit over the Alpine ranges since the early 1980s. The OECD report said warming in the Alps in recent years has been roughly three times the global average.

The report goes on to say that, geographically, Germany is the most at risk, while Switzerland has the least impact (relatively speaking). France, with its new shutdown projected to be the first of many is specified as being at average impact from global warming.

Which means the average norm will be no snow, an annual loss, last year, of $882,000 for one specified town (which is why they closed down)...

Not that everyone will miss out:

Abondance Mayor Serge Cettour-Meunier fears that the closure of his station is the start of a troubling trend. "Skiing is again becoming a sport for the rich," since only elite high-altitude resorts will have sufficient snowfall.

So, for now, the rich will still have their playground.

Or will they?

The company that operates the mid-level resorts in France, Switzerland, Italy and Slovenia are under bankruptcy protection, with warming weather given as a principle reason.

Well, heat rises. Maybe, when it rises high enough, all the oil-laden offspring on the slopes will think twice about the warming their parents helped to create.

Here's the link to the MSNBC report.

Climate Change the Culprit in Missing Lake

by Janet Ritz

A few weeks ago, after an entire mountain lake the size of ten (10) football fields in a Chilean National Park mysteriously disappeared and left behind a 130 foot crater, scientists scratched their heads as to the cause.

The likely culprit has now been identified: Climate Change.

Scientists on Tuesday blamed global warming for the disappearance of a glacial lake in remote southern Chile that faded away in just two months, leaving just a crater behind.

The disappearance of the lake in Bernardo O'Higgins National Park was discovered in late May by park rangers, who were stunned to find a 130-foot deep crater where a large lake had been.

After flying over the lake Monday scientists said they were able to draw preliminary conclusions that point to climate change as the leading culprit for the lake's disappearance.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...

The report goes on to say that Chilean glaciologist, Andre Rivera, noticed, while flying over the glacier that dammed the lake, a break in the glacier dam where the ice had thinned to the point where it could not hold the water back. As a result, the water rushed out to a nearby fiord and, from there, unnoticed into the sea.

A 130 foot deep lake the size of ten (10) football fields.

Unnoticed.

On one side of the Bernardo glacier one can see a large hole or gap, and we believe that's where the water flowed through," Rivera said in a navy communique. "This confirms that glaciers in the region are retreating and getting thinner."

Rivera goes on to say: "This would not be happening if the temperature had not increased."

Would not have been happening, but, apparently, it did -- which leads to the inevitable conclusion that it is happening somewhere else (as reported in my earlier post here):

Our 'Gross National Happiness' is now threatened...

Bhutan's former king, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, an environmentalist who made the protection of resources the cornerstone philosophy of his nation, named his policy -- the idea that lifestyle and values were as important as material gains -- their: 'Gross National Happiness'.

But in this high Himalayan nation, lined by lakes and rivers -- a country that has done more than most to help the environment -- the sins of others have overwhelmed that policy, as twenty four of over two thousand glacial melt lakes threaten to spill over their natural dams due to glacier retreat.

Our Gross National Happiness...

How many nations?

Well...

Lake Chad, once one of the African continent's largest bodies of fresh water, has dramatically decreased in size due to climate change and human demand for water. Once a great lake close in surface area to North America's Lake Erie, Lake Chad is now a ghost of its former self. According to a study by University of Wisconsin- Madison researchers, working with NASA's Earth Observing System program, the lake is now 1/20th of the size it was 35 years ago.

http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/...

Images: http://search.nasa.gov/...

Vanishing lake baffles Russians

Residents of a village in central Russia are trying to solve the mystery of a lake that disappeared overnight.

Russia's NTV channel showed a huge, muddy basin where the lake once was, in the village of Bolotnikovo.

"It looks like somebody has pulled the plug out of a gigantic bath," said the TV's correspondent, next to a deep debris-filled hole.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/...

Florida’s Disappearing Lake

It looks like someone pulled the plug out of the bottom of Lake Okeechobee.

Florida’s biggest lake is disappearing. Boats sit at docks surrounded by a sea of grass. Locks that normally move the boats into neighboring canals are now high and dry. At the giant fishing pier at the southern end of the town of Okeechobee on the lake’s north shore, locals and tourists come armed with cameras to walk on the pier and marvel at the water that is missing.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/...

When Lake Jackson "disappeared," governmental agencies jumped in. The Northwest Florida Water Management District, along with state and local governments, were prepared to implement a massive clean-up plan to restore the lake to its previous ecological health and to its renown trophy largemouth bass days.

http://www.landandwater.com/...

6,000-year-old Arctic ponds drying out

In Arctic, pools that burst into life during summer are drying up

Global warming is destroying ponds that have supported life in the Arctic for thousands of years – bad news for the North and an ominous warning to the rest of the world, says a new report by two Canadian scientists.

http://www.thestar.com/...

Global warming threatens to dry up Ganges

The Gangotri glacier, which provides up to 70 percent of the water of the Ganges during the dry summer months, is shrinking at a rate of 40 yards a year, nearly twice as fast as two decades ago, scientists say.

"This may be the first place on earth where global warming could hurt our very religion. We are becoming an endangered species of Hindus," said Veer Bhadra Mishra, an engineer and director of the Varanasi-based Sankat Mochan Foundation, an organization that advocates for the preservation of the Ganges.

[snip]

According to a UN climate report, the Himalayan glaciers that are the sources of the Ganges could disappear by 2030 as temperatures rise.

http://www.boston.com/...

So, Chile, The Himalyas, India, Africa, the United States, the Arctic, that drought in Australia that's been broken up for the moment by floods (but will it be back...? my guess? yeah), and then there's the one in Iceland and that one in Slovenia...

Which puts the global in global warming...

Here's the link to the MSNBC/AP article on the identification of climate change as the likely culprit in the disappearance of the lake in Chile.

Our 'Gross National Happiness' is now threatened...

by Janet Ritz

Bhutan's soon-to-be former king, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, an environmentalist who has decided to give up power after establishing the protection of resources the cornerstone philosophy of his nation, had named that philosophy, the idea that lifestyle and values were as important as material gains, their: 'Gross National Happiness'.

National Flag of Bhutan

For this high Himalayan nation lined by lakes and rivers -- a country that has done more than most to help the environment -- the sins of others have overwhelmed that philosophy, as twenty four of their over two thousand glacial melt lakes threaten to spill over their natural dams due to glacier retreat.

Leading Bhutan's Agricultural Minister to announce that their 'Gross National Happiness' is now threatened:

Bhutan eyes glacier floods as area warms

THIMPU, Bhutan - High in the Himalayas, the isolated mountain kingdom of Bhutan has done more to protect its environment than almost any other country.

Forests cover nearly three quarters of its land, and help to absorb the greenhouse gases others emit. Its strict conservation policies help to guard one of the world's top 10 biodiversity hotspots, often to the chagrin of its own farmers. Yet Bhutan could pay a high price for the sins of others — global warming is a major threat to its fragile ecosystem and the livelihoods of its people.

[snip]

The most dramatic threat is posed by what scientists call Glacial Lake Outburst Floods. As the Himalaya's glaciers recede, these lakes are forming and filling with melt water all along the mountain range...

Bhutan reports their glaciers are believed to be retreating at sixty to ninety feet a year. They are also beginning to record diseases never before experienced in the high Himalayas, such as Malaria and dengue fever.

Their government is drawing up a national plan to address the problems of climate change, but even the best planning in the world will not be enough if the other nations of the world do not do their part. In the meantime, they're giving radios and walkie-talkies to villages at the highest elevations in a effort to provide an early warning of sudden floods to the populations below.

Bhutan is not the only place where dramatic glacier change is occurring.

ABC reported, in Nov., about a Norwegian glacier that was melting so fast, the scientists working there had to abandon their research.

Video link here.

And environmental photojournalist, David Arnold, recently took identical photographs of glaciers photographed seventy years ago by mountain climber, Brad Washburn. The results, which are stark, are at this link.

Malaria in the Himalayas.

A canary on top of the world.

Everyone's Gross National Happiness is threatened.

More information:

Here's a story about Bhutanese refugees in Nepal with an interesting paragraph at the end about Bhutan's former king's decision to hand power over to an elected government.

The video story of the Norwegian glacier.

And the glacier comparison photos.

[image of Bhutan National Flag is public domain]