Climate change will melt the 21 remaining glaciers in the Pyrenees Mountains before 2050, a group of Spanish researchers said Friday.
"The steady increase in temperature - a total of 0.9 degrees Celsius from 1890 to today - indicates that the Pyrenees glaciers will disappear before 2050"
For 5,000 years, great tongues of ice have spread over the 3-mile-high slopes of Puncak Jaya, in the remotest reaches of this remote tropical island. Now those glaciers are melting, and Lonnie Thompson must get there before they're gone. To the American glaciologist, the ancient ice is a vanishing "archive" of the story of El Nino, the equatorial phenomenon driving much of the world's climate. More than that, the little-explored glaciers are a last unknown for a mountaineering scientist who for three decades has circled the planet pioneering the deep-drilling of ice cores, both to chronicle the history of climate and to bear witness to the death of tropical glaciers from global warming.
Two researchers here spent months scouring through old expedition logs and reports, and reviewing 70-year-old maps and photos before making a surprising discovery: They found that the effects of the current warming and melting of Greenland 's glaciers that has alarmed the world's climate scientists occurred in the decades following an abrupt warming in the 1920s. Their evidence reinforces the belief that glaciers and other bodies of ice are exquisitely hyper-sensitive to climate change and bolsters the concern that rising temperatures will speed the demise of that island's ice fields, hastening sea level rise.
A massive glacier valley dating back 2.5 million years has been found in Beijing. Geologists claimed the special landforms in Bailong Valley in Mentougou District in western Beijing were formed by the corrosion of ancient glaciers that existed during the Ice Age of the Quaternary Period, between 2 and 3 million years ago. The district is preparing to turn the valley into a glacier geological park to preserve the relics and provide a research base for scientists, Liu Dequan, a local government official, said. Wang Hongjie, a senior engineer of a geological survey team under the Ministry of Land and Resources, discovered the glacier relics earlier this year.
Deep inside the Tennengebirge mountains lies a frozen world. The Eisriesenwelt ice caves at Werfen near the Austrian city of Salzburg are said to be the largest in the world. Warmer temperatures in the Alps have been causing concern about the future of glaciers and of the ski industry in the region.
Chinese researchers say they have discovered a large amount of stones believed to be the relics of the Quaternary period glaciers (about 2.5 million years ago) in the suburbs of Beijing. The stones, many measuring several meters high and with one to three leveled surfaces, were discovered in a 2-km-long valley in Miaofengshan Town in Mentougou District, about 100 kilometres west of downtown Beijing. Geologists say the discovery of the rare glacial relics will contribute to the study of how ancient glaciers formed and melted and their effects on the local climate.
Glacier-monitoring station inaugurated in Yunnan The inauguration for a Chinese Academy of Science observation station for glacier and environment was held at a symposium on glaciology held in late May at Yulong Xueshan (Jade Dragon and Snow-capped Mountain) in the suburban Lijiang County of southwest China's Yunnan Province. It is China's first observing station designed to study modern marine glaciers. Under the administration of the Chinese Academy of Science Cold & Arid Regions Environmental & Engineering Research Institute, its main research priorities will include the snow-and-ice cap, climate, eco-system, water and hydrological setting, resources for sight-seeing, human activity and sustainable development in a given area such as Yulong Xueshan, which is a low-latitude and picturesque district of glaciers dominated by a marine monsoon climate. Its fieldwork will be especially focused on the observation of the modern glaciers and their snow and ice buildup, altitude meteorology, ecological evolution, impacts posed by human encroachment and the local development.