Reply
Mon 8 May, 2006 06:18 pm
By Geoffrey Lean
The Independent UK
Sunday 07 May 2006
Scientists warn of ecological catastrophe across Asia as glaciers melt and continent's great rivers dry up.
Global warming is rapidly melting the ice-bound roof of the world, and turning it into desert, leading scientists have revealed.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences - the country's top scientific body - has announced that the glaciers of the Tibetan plateau are vanishing so fast that they will be reduced by 50 per cent every decade. Each year enough water permanently melts from them to fill the entire Yellow River.
They added that the vast environmental changes brought about by the process will increase droughts and sandstorms over the rest of the country, and devastate many of the world's greatest rivers, in what experts warn will be an "ecological catastrophe."
The plateau, says the academy, has a staggering 46,298 glaciers, covering almost 60,000 square miles. At an average height of 13,000 feet above sea level, they make up the largest area of ice outside the polar regions, nearly a sixth of the world's total.
The glaciers have been receding over the past four decades, as the world has gradually warmed up, but the process has now accelerated alarmingly. Average temperatures in Tibet have risen by 2 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 20 years, causing the glaciers to shrink by 7 per cent a year, which means that they will halve every 10 years.
Prof Dong Guangrong, speaking for the academy - after a study analysing data from 680 weather stations scattered across the country - said that the rising temperatures would thaw out the tundra of the plateau, turning it into desert.
He added: "The melting glaciers will ultimately trigger more droughts, expand desertification and increase sand storms." The water running off the plateau is increasing soil erosion and so allowing the deserts to spread.
Sandstorms, blowing in from the degraded land, are already plaguing the country. So far this year, 13 of them have hit northern China, including Beijing. Three weeks ago one storm swept across an eighth of the vast country and even reached Korea and Japan. On the way, it dumped a mind-boggling 336,000 tons of dust on the capital, causing dangerous air pollution.
The rising temperatures are also endangering the newly built world's highest railway, which is due to go into operation this summer. They threaten to melt the permafrost under the tracks of the £1.7bn Tibetan railway, constructed to link the area with China's northwestern Qinghai province.
Perhaps worst of all, the melting threatens to disrupt water supplies over much of Asia. Many of the continent's greatest rivers - including the Yangtze, the Indus, the Ganges, the Brahmaputra, the Mekong and the Yellow River - rise on the plateau.
In China alone, 300 million people depend on water from the glaciers for their survival. Yet the plateau is drying up, threatening to escalate an already dire situation across the country. Already 400 cities are short of water; in 100 of them - including Beijing - the shortages are becoming critical.
Even hopes that the melting glaciers might provide a temporary respite, by increasing the amount of water flowing off the plateau - have been dashed. For most of the water is evaporating before it reaches the people that need it - again because of the rising temperatures brought by global warning.
Yao Tandong, head of the academy's Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Research Institute, summed it up. "The full-scale glacier shrinkage in the plateau regions will eventually lead to an ecological catastrophe," he said.
Why does global warming hate my freedom to drive a Hummer.
While I am vastly interested in this topic, it might get better attention and discussion in a different forum.
So,why is this news?
The "ice bound" roof of the world has ALWAYS been a desert.
A desert is defined as...
A barren or desolate area, especially:
a. A dry, often sandy region of little rainfall, extreme temperatures, and sparse vegetation.
b. A region of permanent cold that is largely or entirely devoid of life.
c. An apparently lifeless area of water.
2. An empty or forsaken place; a wasteland: a cultural desert.
3. Archaic A wild, uncultivated, and uninhabited region.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/desert
So,the polart regions,and the highest mountains,have been deserts since the dawn of man.
mysteryman wrote:So,why is this news?
The "ice bound" roof of the world has ALWAYS been a desert.
A desert is defined as...
A barren or desolate area, especially:
a. A dry, often sandy region of little rainfall, extreme temperatures, and sparse vegetation.
b. A region of permanent cold that is largely or entirely devoid of life.
c. An apparently lifeless area of water.
2. An empty or forsaken place; a wasteland: a cultural desert.
3. Archaic A wild, uncultivated, and uninhabited region.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/desert
So,the polart regions,and the highest mountains,have been deserts since the dawn of man.
That's right. Take one word of the article, focus on it, give it an inordinate amount of detail, and completely miss the point of the entire message. Well done.
JustanObserver wrote:mysteryman wrote:So,why is this news?
The "ice bound" roof of the world has ALWAYS been a desert.
A desert is defined as...
A barren or desolate area, especially:
a. A dry, often sandy region of little rainfall, extreme temperatures, and sparse vegetation.
b. A region of permanent cold that is largely or entirely devoid of life.
c. An apparently lifeless area of water.
2. An empty or forsaken place; a wasteland: a cultural desert.
3. Archaic A wild, uncultivated, and uninhabited region.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/desert
So,the polart regions,and the highest mountains,have been deserts since the dawn of man.
That's right. Take one word of the article, focus on it, give it an inordinate amount of detail, and completely miss the point of the entire message. Well done.
The claim was the it was turning into a desert.
I just showed that it has ALWAYS been a desert.
You should read the title of the thread,before you comment on what I wrote.
mysteryman wrote: The claim was the it was turning into a desert.
I just showed that it has ALWAYS been a desert.
You should read the title of the thread,before you comment on what I wrote.
Yes, yes. Because clearly a debate
over the wording of a title is clearly what A2K is all about.
Getting your ass handed to you when you tried to do the same thing in the "Rush limbaugh arrested" thread didn't teach you anything, I see.
JustanObserver wrote:mysteryman wrote: The claim was the it was turning into a desert.
I just showed that it has ALWAYS been a desert.
You should read the title of the thread,before you comment on what I wrote.
Yes, yes. Because clearly a debate
over the wording of a title is clearly what A2K is all about.
Getting your ass handed to you when you tried to do the same thing in the "Rush limbaugh arrested" thread didn't teach you anything, I see.
Lets see,The point of the article is to try and show that the earth is warming.
OK,I concede that it is in a slight warming cycle right now.
But,since these cycles have been happening since the dawn of time,I see nothing to worry about.
Again,I responded to the title of the thread.
Are you saying that the definition of desert is wrong?
Are you saying that the polar regions,and the "roof of the world" dont meet that definition?
Are you saying that its a new phenomena for the earth to be warming slightly?
Exactly what is your point?
mysteryman wrote:
Are you saying that the definition of desert is wrong?
Are you saying that the polar regions,and the "roof of the world" dont meet that definition?
Are you saying that its a new phenomena for the earth to be warming slightly?
Exactly what is your point?
You just made it for me. Thank you.
JustanObserver wrote:mysteryman wrote:
Are you saying that the definition of desert is wrong?
Are you saying that the polar regions,and the "roof of the world" dont meet that definition?
Are you saying that its a new phenomena for the earth to be warming slightly?
Exactly what is your point?
You just made it for me. Thank you.
So in other words,you had no point.
mysteryman wrote:So in other words,you had no point.
I did, but you missed it in a spectatular fashion.
I made the mistake of actually responding to your inane comment in the first place. That's where I went wrong here.
I
could do what I've done in the past (which is practically hold your hand and walk you through an explination, step by step), but it's clear you don't want an intellectual conversation. You want to waste my time. So I won't bother.
Now I'll address your inevitable "get the last word in" reply insinuating that either you have somehow bested me, I'm incapable of explaining myself, or some combination of the two. To that I say,
Between replying to you and BernardR, I think I must have some hidden masochistic tendencies or something.