Twitter headlines« Study Finds Water Footprint for Bioenergy Larger Than Other Forms of Energy; Bioelectricity the Smallest, Biodiesel the Largest | Main | Toyota Industries to Begin Selling Rechargers for EVs and PHEVs »
CAS Researchers Conclude Climate Change Causing Rapid Reduction of Ice in Great Himalayas
7 June 2009
The Himalayan glacier volume is reducing rapidly due to climate change, leading to cascading effect of alpine ecosystem there, according to a recent study by researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).
The Greater Himalayas hold the largest mass of ice outside of the polar regions and are the source of the 10 largest rivers in Asia.
The cascading effects of rising temperatures and loss of ice and snow in the region are affecting water availability (amounts, seasonality), biodiversity (endemic species, predator-prey relations), ecosystem boundary shifts (tree-line shifting, high-elevation ecosystem changes) and global changes (monsoonal shifts, loss of soil carbon), found Xu Jianchu, researcher of Key Laboratory of Biodiversity and Biogeography, Kunming Institute of Botany, CAS.
The results were published in Conservation Biology, a journal of the Society for Conservation Biology. According to the study, climate change will also have environmental and social impacts that will likely increase uncertainty in water supplies and agricultural production across Asia.
June 7, 2009 in Brief | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack (0)
Comments
Posted by: Reel$$ | June 07, 2009 at 06:34 AM
I just read that and it says Himalayan silicate weathering contributed a 1 to 6 degree Celsius change over the Cenozoic period. I checked Wikipedia.org and the Cenozoic is the past 65.5 million years. Did you actually believe what you posted or are you just trolling?
Posted by: NewtonPulsifer | June 07, 2009 at 05:13 PM
Given this paper is from the godless Chinese Acadademy of Science we have to conclude somehow they too have been lured into the great conspiracy to deceive us all about Global Warming. Presumably the deniers will soon find a compelling logic as to why that would be the case........
Just like the people who see twenty Cubans on every grassy knoll and bits of the Roswell man in every Air Force depot the greenhouse deniers can never be convinced.
Posted by: SVW | June 07, 2009 at 06:53 PM
Sooo if the Chinese are so concerned about their Himalayas, why are they building so many coal fired power plants? Why is China one of the worst offenders with respect to emissions?
Posted by: ejj | June 07, 2009 at 07:31 PM
ejj:
Er, don't you mean THE worst offender?
Posted by: sulleny | June 08, 2009 at 01:00 AM
sulleny,
Not on a per capita basis.
Posted by: Anne | June 08, 2009 at 08:26 AM
By volume of pollutants is the only measure of value. Unless you're flogging politics.
Posted by: Reel$$ | June 08, 2009 at 01:58 PM
Climate change is caused by mostly industrial and transport CO2 that has been emitted for centuries. The west put 75% of the current excess carbon in the atmosphere, and the US the lions share of that. China's industry produces huge amounts of CO2 to make aluminium and other base chemicals and metals mainly to fill Home Depot with ride-on lawn mowers so fat Americans dont have to strain themselves unduly. Have a look at the back of your Ipod and see where that is made.
So the planet is on the highway to hell and the people who did it, yes us, the west, have to pay to fix the mess we made. The west has to pay China (and India and Brazil) to stop emitting. Get used to it.
Posted by: SVW | June 09, 2009 at 06:23 PM
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341c4fbe53ef011570cd3451970b
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference CAS Researchers Conclude Climate Change Causing Rapid Reduction of Ice in Great Himalayas:
Sounds like it is a local effect driven only by local phenomena. Of course then there are these crazy scientists with NASA and the AGU who claim the weatherability of the Himalayan crust may cause global cooling!
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2002AGUFMGC61A..04B
Oh my! What a tangled web we weave eh?
And let's just dismiss this year's Antarctic sea ice extent exceeding the 30 year average!