Two more reminders of why I keep saying that water is the primary vector for delivering the human impacts of climate change…
Loss of ice heralds an emergency:
Last April, former US vice-president Al Gore and I charged an expert panel of scientists to summarise the state of the globe’s ice sheets and snow. Those scientists have completed their work, and we will present that report in Copenhagen today. We expected sobering reading. What we have is a loudly ringing alarm from every corner of the cryosphere, an alarm bell of melting ice:
- Loss from the Greenland ice sheet has increased three-fold just in the past decade.
- Snow cover is decreasing, and land glaciers from the Himalayas to the Alps are disappearing at rapid rates, with greatest loss in the Andes and American north-west.
- Once apparently immune to the ice loss, even mighty Antarctica is showing signs of ice loss now as temperatures rise.
What does this mean for the peoples of the world, most of whom live nowhere near ice and snow? It just might mean everything, in terms of our future:
- The latest (2007) intergovernmental panel estimates of 0.5 metres sea level rise by 2100 are now considered a minimum. Because of accelerated melting on Greenland and elsewhere, the anticipated rise by 2100 may reach 1.5 metres, affecting hundreds of millions of people.
- Loss of snow and sea ice is decreasing the reflectivity of the Earth’s surface, and thaw of permafrost is releasing more methane and carbon dioxide than expected. This will lead to much faster warming of the entire globe.
- Land glacier loss may lead to widespread water shortages. About 2 billion people today depend on water from the Himalayan plateau alone, the Earth’s “Third Pole”.
I haven’t found the report yet. If someone else finds it, please leave a comment with a link.
In Bolivia, Water and Ice Tell of Climate Change:
The glaciers that have long provided water and electricity to this part of Bolivia are melting and disappearing, victims of global warming, most scientists say.
If the water problems are not solved, El Alto, a poor sister city of La Paz, could perhaps be the first large urban casualty of climate change. A World Bank report concluded last year that climate change would eliminate many glaciers in the Andes within 20 years, threatening the existence of nearly 100 million people.
For the nearly 200 nations trying to hammer out an international climate accord in Copenhagen, the question of how to address the needs of dozens of countries like Bolivia is a central focus of the negotiations and a major obstacle to a treaty.
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With its recent climate-induced catastrophes, Bolivia has become an angry voice for poor nations, demanding that any financing be paid out in full and rapidly.
“We have a big problem and even money won’t completely solve it,” said Pablo Solón, Bolivia’s ambassador to the United Nations. “What do you do when your glacier disappears or your island is under water?”
Scientists say that money and engineering could solve La Paz-El Alto’s water problems, with projects including a well-designed reservoir. The glaciers that ring the cities have essentially provided natural low-maintenance storage, collecting water in the short rainy season and releasing it for water and electricity in the long dry one. With warmer temperatures and changing rainfall, they no longer do so.
“The effects are appearing much more rapidly than we can respond to them, and a reservoir takes five to seven years to build. I’m not sure we have that long,” said Edson Ramírez, a Bolivian glaciologist who has documented and projected the glaciers’ retreat for two decades.
See the article for much more detail.
