Climate change is making New Zealand's biggest glaciers melt twice as quickly as comparable ice masses overseas, according to research released today by leading climate change expert, Dr Jim Salinger.
The Southern Alps' 12 biggest glaciers had crossed a "tipping point" into faster melting as they respond to regional warming ... regional warming?
The Niwa research, which is the first long-term study of ice mass in the Southern Alps, found 5.8cukm of ice had been lost in the past 20 years. That was almost 11% of the total ice mass. More than 90% of this loss was from the 12 largest glaciers ... The overall shrinkage is despite almost no change in the position of the ‘End of Summer Snowline’ at the top of the Southern Alps glaciers and that The Southern Alps glaciers monitored annually by NIWA showed little change in ice mass in the year to March 2007.
Source: Aerial survey of 50 indicator glaciers, conducted at the end of summer each year since 1977. So this survey is aerial, so no topograhical surveys ... just aerial photos?
Source: Aerial survey of 50 indicator glaciers, conducted at the end of summer each year since 1977. So this survey is aerial, so no topograhical surveys ... just aerial photos?
Not so for the smaller glaciers though ... Smaller glaciers, having rapidly adjusted to regional warming earlier, (adjusted to regional warming earlier? Greater time to adapt so less loss of ice mass?) had not receded much in the past 20 years or in a few cases have slightly advanced. They include two well-known West Coast glaciers, the Fox and the Franz Josef... But, all the glaciers advanced during most of the 1980s and 1990s when the area experienced about a 15% increase in precipitation, associated with more El Niño events and stronger westerly winds over New Zealand.
So, it seems, entirely as one would expect, that the glaciers vary considerably over time ... backwards and forwards and up and down, so to speak, and this year everything is ... well ... pretty uneventful ... like no real change ... and that these findings should, well just happen to be ready for publication today, as the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change releases a synthesis report in Valencia today ... well science can be like that you know.
2 comments:
Just when you thought it was safe to venture from your home, REGIONAL WARMING strikes.
Is no one safe? Not in this REGION. That dull humming sound? No, it's not the next door neighbour's lawn mower - its the thundering tsunami created by glacier melt.
Arrgh.
Yep, Salinger doesn't have much of a way with words ... nor it would appear have much of a conception of what science is.
But, dammit ... I seem to be following in your 'carbon footprint' here.
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