A friend (Kerry) sent me this article about glaciers and
it left me feeling confused. I don't know whether to
be shocked or discount the facts. Has anyone else
heard about this?
------------------------
http://www.sunday-
times.co.uk/news/pages/tim/99/07/20/timfgnasi02001.html?14
42329
HIMALAYAN glaciers could vanish within 40 years because of
global warming, according to a research study.
The findings, to be disclosed at an international meeting that
opened yesterday at Birmingham University, will trigger fears of sea
levels rising at a faster rate across the globe, swamping small
island states like the Maldives and the Marshall Islands.
About 500 million people in countries such as India could also be
at increased risk of drought and starvation.
The meltwaters of the Himalayas and the nearby Tibetan plateau
make up two thirds of the flow of the Ganges and other rivers, such
as the Indus and Brahmaputra, which are crucial for drinking water,
livestock and irrigation.
The melting glaciers will also increase the risk of dangerous floods,
experts fear.
Scientists studying the region's glaciers say that dozens of
meltwater lakes that are forming could burst and swamp villages. In
1985 a hydroelectric plant was destroyed when a wall of water 45ft
high swept down from just such a lake in the Khumbu region of
Nepal. A glacier lake forming in Nepal's Sagarmatha Park has
accumulated about 30 million gallons of water since the 1960s and
could burst within five years.
The findings are to be released at a meeting of the members of the
World Meteorological Organisation's commission on snow and ice.
One of the researchers involved, Syed Hasnain, of the Jawaharlal
Nehru University in Delhi, said studies indicate that the glaciers in
the region could be gone by 2035. The Gangotri glacier, at the
head of the Ganges, is receding at a rate of about 90ft a year.
Glaciers in the Alps and other key mountain ranges are all melting
as temperatures, partly because of man-made pollution, rise to
0.5C above those a century ago, but Dr Hasnain's team told New
Scientist magazine that those in the central and eastern
Himalayas were melting more quickly than those anywhere else.
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Jeff Owens ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Zone 7, http://www.teleport.com/~kowens
Underground house, solar energy, reduced consumption, no TV
