Late Night Climate Change Open Thread
Posted: December 9, 2011 Filed under: Climate Change, Environment | Tags: Climate change, glaciers, global warming, Jorge Montt glacier, Patagonia, science 4 Comments
From Mother Nature Network Blog:
Patagonia’s Jorge Montt glacier is melting faster than any other glacier in Chile, having shrunk by more than half a mile in just 12 months, researchers announced Wednesday. And they have 1,445 photos to prove it.
The glacier is located 1,000 miles south of Santiago in the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, which covers 4.1 million acres in the Andes between Chile and Argentina. According to the Center for Scientific Studies in Valdivia, which has made a time-lapse video of the retreating glacier, Jorge Montt’s snout shrunk by 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) from January 2010 to February 2011.
“Patagonia has experienced climate change at rates much more moderate than those observed in the rest of the world,” glaciologist Andres Rivera says in a press release about the findings. “However, almost all the glaciers of the region have lost area. And Jorge Montt is the one that has the record retreat.”
….
That retreat has already altered the surrounding landscape, including the emergence of the 12-mile-long, 1,300-foot-deep fjord, which wasn’t previously listed on local maps. It also highlights the plight of glaciers across Patagonia — according to a study published in April, Patagonia’s glacial melting has “increased markedly” in recent decades, contributing about 10 percent of global sea-level rise related to mountain glaciers in the past 50 years. And as glaciologist Michel Barer tells the Associated Press, the problem of retreating glaciers “is really hot in South America” overall.
Pun intended? Watch the video:
peej
Carissa
ecocatwoman
mablue2
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Didn’t 0bowma say something about climate change when he was campaigning in ’08 — something along the lines of — elect me and the oceans will go down (or something like that).
I used to get a lot of environmental e-mail and all the writers claimed that 0bowma was the answer to global warming. Ha Ha — boy are they being fooled — I’d say.
Not much difference between 0 and GWB as far as I can see — actions count and I’m not seeing positive actions from 0.
That’s right. He said that in a speech in Minnesota at the same time Hillary was winning the South Dakota primary.
The last few days have been a mass of global warming links, I guess because of the Durban conference.
NRDC has put together an Extreme Weather Map showing just how bad things are in these Yoonited States.
Effect of warming on the Himalayan snow pack and the implications for the couple of billion or so people who depend on that storehouse of fresh water.
Fish suffer from increased parasitism in warmer water.
Too lazy to look up the link, but dengue fever is marching north and becoming a constantly bigger problem as the carrier mosquitoes can survive, at this point, all the way up to Boston.
LATimes editorial about ignoring global warming
Geoengineering fixes are almost all pie-in-the-sky BS, or worse. The latest example: Capturing CO2 Too Costly to Combat Climate Change
And in the “This is totally unncessary stupidity” Department: The Stanford study that shows how we could switch to 100% clean, sustainable renewables within 20-40 years.
The mind reels.
Thanks for all those links, Quixote. You should write a post. You’re the science expert here. I worry about what the world will be like for my nieces and nephews–and grandneices and nephews.