Starved Polar Bear In Norway May Be A Victim Of Climate Change
By Sara Gates Posted: 08/08/2013 10:12 am EDT | Updated: 08/08/2013 9:30 pm EDT
A polar bear carcass found on the Arctic island of Svalbard, the northernmost part of Norway, has shocked experts who say climate change [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/climate-change/ ] may be to blame for the animal's death.
"From his lying position in death the bear appears to simply have starved and died where he dropped [ http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/aug/06/starved-polar-bear-record-sea-ice-melt ]," polar bear expert Dr. Ian Stirling, an adjunct professor at the University of Alberta, told The Guardian. "He had no external suggestion of any remaining fat, having been reduced to little more than skin and bone."
"We had to push up until 550 miles from the North Pole before we found any sea ice, which was kind of rotten," Global Warming Images' Ashley Cooper [ http://www.globalwarmingimages.net/about.html ], who was part of the expedition that discovered the starved bear, told the blog. "It was very patchy and broken up and thin, only just about holding the weight of a polar bear."
"There isn’t a future for them unless we can very rapidly get on top of climate change," he told the outlet.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature currently classifies polar bears as vulnerable [ http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/22823/0 ] on its Red List of Threatened Species.
Inside the Pallin glacier tunnel, exposed by melting ice - video
Project Pressure .. http://www.project-pressure.org/ .. aims to create the world's first glacier archive, a visual time capsule using geo-tagged photographs to document the world's vanishing glaciers in order to highlight the impact of climate change. In this expedition, members of the team explore a tunnel in the Pallin glacier in northern Sweden, which has become accessible as the melting glacier has shrunk
A view of the lake formed by meltwater from the Pastoruri glacier, as seen from atop the glacier in Huaraz, September 19, 2013. The Pastoruri glacier is one of the fastest receding glaciers in the Cordillera Blanca mountain range according to a 2012 paper by the University of Texas and the Huascaran National Park. Peru is home to 71% of the worlds tropical glaciers, which are a source of fresh water for millions, but 22% of the surface area of Peruvian glaciers has disappeared in the past 30 years alone, according to The World Bank. Picture taken September 19, 2013. (REUTERS/Mariana Bazo)
By Mitra Taj
HUARAZ, Peru (Reuters) - In its heyday, the Pastoruri glacier in central Peru, drew daily throngs of tourists packed into dozens of double-decker buses 16,000-feet (5,0000-meters) high into the Andes to ski, build snowmen and scale its dizzying peaks.
It was so bright with ice and snow that sunglasses were mandatory.
But in less than 20 years, including at least 10 of the hottest on record, Pastoruri has shrunk in half, and now spans just a third of a square mile (0.9 square km).
Melting ice has given way to slabs of black rock, two small lakes gathering the glacial runoff have swollen together, and officials have banned climbing on the unstable formation.
"There isn't much left of our great tourist attraction," said local guide Valerio Huerta, squinting at Pastoruri. "Tourists now always leave totally disappointed."
The dwindling number of visitors to Pastoruri - 34,000 last year compared to an estimated 100,000 per year in the 1990s - has eroded tourism earnings that support thousands in the Cordillera Blanca, Peru's most popular cluster of snowy peaks.
Now locals are making a bid to lure tourists back to Pastoruri before it is gone completely - likely in a decade.
Instead of marketing Pastoruri as the pristine Andean winter wonderland it once was - visible in outdated pictures that still hang in hotels and restaurants in nearby towns - the peak is being rebranded as a place to see climate change in action.
The "climate change route," to officially launch in March, is the latest offbeat answer to rising temperatures that have eaten up 30 to 50 percent of Andean glaciers in recent decades.
Peruvians have insulated ice with sawdust to stave off melting and painted exposed rock white to reflect sunlight.
Those experiments curb glacial retreat on a small scale, but cannot bring ice blocks like Pastoruri back from the brink, said Selwyn Valverde with the Huascaran National Park, home to Pastoruri and more than 700 other shrinking Peruvian glaciers.
"It's irreversible at this point," he said, adding that Pastoruri is no longer technically a glacier because it does not build up ice in the winter to release in the summer. "It's just loss, loss, loss now. It doesn't accumulate anymore."
Peru is home to 70 percent of the world's tropical glaciers, formations particularly sensitive to temperature hikes.
Supporters of the route say Pastoruri, an hour-long flight from Lima and then another hour's drive from the regional capital Huaraz, is perfectly positioned to show the world the impacts of warming that will one day be widespread.
'BORING' TO WATCH GLACIER DISAPPEAR?
On the climate change route, visitors pass marshes and ponds red with rust as they walk over a hill that was once ice.
"Smell the water," Valverde said, bringing a handful to his nose. "Do you smell the iron?"
Mountain rocks covered for years are shedding minerals as ice melts off them - rendering water undrinkable with high levels of heavy metals like cadmium and iron, Valverde said.
Newly exposed rocks have also revealed fossilized marine species that likely last saw the light of day before the start of the last ice age - more than 100,000 years ago.
Pastoruri is still a striking chunk of ice, but it is unclear if tourists, even the more science-minded tourists being targeted, will come to watch its demise.
In Huaraz, Korbinian Munster, a German tourist, said he took his guide book's advice and skipped the day trip to Pastoruri, instead opting for rock climbing on an iceless mountain nearby.
Seeing climate change up close did not appeal to him.
"I prefer visiting nice things," Munster said. "Seeing something that once was a glacier sounds quite boring and sad."
Pastoruri is not the only popular spot affected by climate change. As warmer temperatures tweak ecosystems, boost the frequency of extreme weather and degrade coastlines, the global map of favorite tourist destinations is slowly being redrawn.
Warming waters are intensifying coral bleaching at Australia's Great Barrier Reef, and increasingly regular flooding in Venice could limit future visits.
But for some, the passing nature of Pastoruri is the allure.
"They say it's disappearing," said tourist Santiago Florian, as he caught his breath on a hike toward Pastoruri. "I wanted to be able to say after it's gone that I was here."
NO CHOICE BUT TO ADAPT
As water trickles off Pastoruri, local vendors idle at a row of food and coat-rental stands near its base.
"I used to sell 30-40 plates of food per day," said Nelisia Tuya, stirring a pot of lamb and yucca soup. "Now it's 2-3, or maybe 5-6 at the most. And that's with fewer of us selling."
Some of Tuya's former competitors - all, like her, from the nearby Quechua-speaking community of Catac - have trailed Pastoruri's melting ice into cities below in search of jobs.
There are no official figures on falling revenues linked to Pastoruri's retreat. But Marcos Pastor with the state agency charged with protecting natural sites said about a quarter of people who live in and around the Cordillera Blanca depend on glacier tourism.
The threat to tourism might seem trivial compared with other potential climate change impacts.
Expanding glacier-fed lakes threaten to wipe out entire towns if they burst, minerals leaching into watersheds pose new health risks, and millions along Peru's crowded desert coast will eventually face diminishing supplies of water.
But tourism is an important source of cash for hundreds of towns in the Peruvian Andes, where there are relatively few jobs and the trickle-down benefits of a long metals boom can be hard to find.
"Tourism is one of the few economic activities in Peru that distributes money directly to locals," said Pastor.
At Pastoruri that means money not just for food vendors but for those who service outhouses or rent horses, bus drivers, guides and companies that coordinate trips from city desks.
Travel agent Artidoro Salas with Andes Hard Expeditions said he has thought of leaving his hometown Huaraz to start a tourism venture where there is stronger demand - maybe Cusco, the home of the popular Incan ruins at Machu Picchu.
"There are at least eight travel agencies that have gone out of business here over the past decade - and those are only the ones I know of," said Salas. "Pastoruri has been a big problem. It was the main reason tourists used to come here."
Salas has gotten by tailoring trips for adventure travelers, and is curious to see if a niche market for climate change tourism might grow from the melted remains of Pastoruri.
Park official Valverde said the route aims to inspire, not depress. He pointed to lichens and mosses that have managed to thrive in oxidized puddles at the foot of Pastoruri.
"If they can adapt to that, why can't we, too, adapt to climate change?" he said. "The reality is that we already are. That's what this route is all about."
Antarctic glacier ‘vulnerable’ to warmer water, says CSIRO scientist
ANDREW DRUMMOND AAP * AAP * January 26, 2015 12:42PM
Aurora Australis gets up close to the Totten Glacier in East Antarctica.
ONE of the world’s biggest glaciers, holding enough water to raise global sea levels by about six metres, is under threat from warming ocean temperatures, researchers say.
CSIRO scientist Dr Steve Rintoul.
Satellite observations show that the Totten Glacier, located in Antarctica’s Australian territory and bordering the Southern Ocean, has decreased in thickness over the past 15 years.
CSIRO scientist Steve Rintoul said the glacier, which covers an area more than one and a half times that of the ACT, was considered to be in the stable portion of east Antarctica, untouched by warmer currents.
“Our research has shown that warm ocean waters reach the area and the glacier is more vulnerable that first thought,” Dr Rintoul said today.
“The next question is, what does that mean for the future?”
Australia’s icebreaker Aurora Australis has just returned from a research trip to the Totten Glacier collecting water samples that Dr Rintoul hope will provide clues to the changing environment around the glacier.
“The glacier is not going to melt tomorrow and we are not going to get six metres of sea level rise any time soon, it is not a doomsday scenario,” he said.
“But it is important to know what climate change might be kicking off now that might not be able to be corrected in the future.”
The Totten Glacier in East Antarctica has decreased in thickness over the past 15 years.
.. well, Noah, ol' son, some 97% of climate scientists are .. the other ruff 3%? .. well, too many have faith in them, and it's kinda ironic that the same people have faith in the guy who undoubtedly you had faith in, too ..
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