Last Indonesian Glacier Under Threat

Just found this interesting article and thought I'd share.

"Last Indonesian Glacier Under Threat"
www.redorbit.com...

snippit:

"American glaciologist Lonnie Thompson has spent decades on glaciers drilling ice cores and has never come across a situation that is now occurring on top of Puncak Jaya -- a three-mile high glacier located in the Sudirman Range in the western central highlands of Papua province, Indonesia."

"Thompson had hoped to chronicle the affect of global warming on the last remaining glacier in the Pacific. But what he found has worried him even more. As he set up camp he could hear the ice melting beneath him."

"The glacier was pounded by rain every afternoon during the 13-day trip. The nights were spent listening to water gushing below him."

"In the two weeks he spent on the glacier, ice had melted around their sheltered campsite a shocking 12 inches."

“These glaciers are dying,” Thompson, one of the world's most accomplished glaciologists, told the Associated Press (AP). “Before I was thinking they had a few decades, but now I'd say we're looking at years.”

edit: Here's a link to the USGS page on glaciers in Indonesia FYI:

pubs.usgs.gov...

[edit on 7/2/2010 by this_is_who_we_are]

Is this anything like the other glacier melting warnings? I seem to remember getting a shocking story about glaciers melting and then it being recanted by the people that published it. THey said something about lack of verifiable scientific investigation. Then they said they basically made it up.

I don't really follow the whole global warming debate. So, please enlighten me.

Create an online petition to pay your carbon tax to the Last Indonesian Glacier fund. If the taxes are received in time, perhaps the glacier can apply for a life-extension grant from Gore and Co.

edit: Can't help the heavy sarcasm, sorry OP.

[edit on 2-7-2010 by primus2012]

reply to post by this_is_who_we_are


wow!
thanks.
mainly because i didn't even realize there were glaciers in Indonesia! didn't know the mountains were that high.

reply to post by MikeNice81


well, it's not all a false alarm, and i'm not one that's into the whole "climate change OMG we did it with our cars etc..."
i think there are changes manifesting but i feel that they are a normal result of the planet's natural cycles, most of which are on such a large scale, time-wise, that we have no true means of fathoming their workings.

on the other hand, definitely there are glaciers that are disappearing because i've seen pictures taken in the 1950's and onward compared side by side with recent pictures. i can't imagine how those would be faked and for what reason.

i'll have to find some links to post.

very easy to find!!

Montana:



the Matterhorn:



McCarty Glacier, Alaska:



Muir & Riggs Glaciers:



Argentina's Upsala Glacier:



Rhone Glacier, Switzerland:



and then, on the other hand, look at these pictures:



obviously in some places they are advancing rather than retreating.
which reminds me of a thought i wanted to share.

i think that we aren't so much losing our ice as it is relocating itself.

only time will tell, however, so i guess it is anybody's guess!

Great pictures but in what month are these take?

One in winter and one in summertime???

It is pity the month isn't published with it

reply to post by DutchBigBoy


all but the first two have dates, years, on the image.

with a glacier i don't think it would make such a drastic difference from summer to winter, the months aren't as critical in just showing the difference over time.

everything about glaciers is slow-motion!

Yes, whilst snow cover varies greatly between summer and winter, most glaciers do not change all that much from season to season - so it probably doesn't really matter too much when pictures were taken (so long as it's only the actual glacier we are comparing). Although there are exceptions.

Around the world, some glaciers are advancing though the majority seem to be in retreat. This is not necessarily due to warming per se since glacial advance/retreat is often more dependant on precipitation - if there is less snowfall in winter than ice melt in summer the the glacier retreats and vice versa. However weather patterns affecting precipitation may in turn be changing due to overal atmospheric warming.

Ironically - and the beniers will love this - both glacial retreat and glacial advance could be caused by global warming!

That said, you shoud also be aware that some, apparently dramatic, glacial retreats may be caused by other things - the infamous Upsala Glacier in Argentina, as used by Greenpeace annd Al Gore, being a good example. Yes, there was a dramatic retreat over a number of years, but this was not caused by climate change and the glacier is no longer retreating.



[edit on 3-7-2010 by Essan]

reply to post by DutchBigBoy


Those are known glaciers. It shouldn't matter what month the picture is taken in.

reply to post by this_is_who_we_are

There are numerous threads, and countless published studies documenting the deleterious effects of "black soot" upon the Indo-Asian environment.

From the Himalayan glaciers to the "Indo-Asian Haze," these conditions are largely the result of soot caused by Indian, Chinese and Indonesian burning of wood and diesel. The soot particles fall onto glacier surfaces and act as heat sinks. Those that remain suspended account for the haze permeating the air in the region.

While these sources can arguably be cited as contributing to "global warming," the immediate effects are not from increased CO2, as the AGW advocates, priests and believers contend, but from the particulate constituents of the fire and power emissions of the region.

If they stopped burning forests and diesel, there wouldn't be as much soot/melting.

jw

[edit on 3-7-2010 by jdub297]