Heineken wrote:With global warming in Europe one of the big impacts will be collapse of the continent's rivers, many of which are heavily fed by melting glacial water and, especially, melting snowpack at higher elevations. As the glaciers and snowpack disappear, the rivers will shrink or actually dry up (a process aided by the ruinous droughts and higher temps that are appearing). This will vastly decrease Europe's carrying capacity for people.
MonteQuest wrote:Heineken wrote:With global warming in Europe one of the big impacts will be collapse of the continent's rivers, many of which are heavily fed by melting glacial water and, especially, melting snowpack at higher elevations. As the glaciers and snowpack disappear, the rivers will shrink or actually dry up (a process aided by the ruinous droughts and higher temps that are appearing). This will vastly decrease Europe's carrying capacity for people.
Liebig's Law once again. The least abundant necessity sets the carrying capacity. The Law of the Minimum.
Etalon wrote:I dont see how the glaciers disappearing will mean the end of the rivers. Precipitation will still fall, so why should the rivers disappear? Glaciers are not a source of water, just temporary storage of precipitation.
Of course, if overall there is a reduction in precipitation, river discharge will decrease however the presence of glaciers has nothing to do with precipitation.
iolGreenland's glaciers have been shrinking for the past century, according to a Danish study published on Monday, suggesting that the ice-melt is not a recent phenomenon caused by global warming.
The effect of the rising temperatures in the 1920s and 1930s was "visible dozens of years later, and that of the 1990s will be (visible) in 10 or 20 years", Yde said, adding that he expected Greenland's glaciers to melt even faster in the future.
The shrinking of the glaciers since the 19th century is "the result of the atmosphere's natural warming, following volcanic eruptions for example and greenhouse gases, created by human activities, which have aggravated the situation further", he said.
The two authors of the study were to present their results on Monday at a conference in Cambridge, England on the impact of global warming on glaciers.
basil_hayden wrote:...Since about 1945, for the last 60 years anyway, a large quantity of CO2 has been produced as a result of jet engines, from airplanes, much higher in the atmosphere where it doesn't get as much of an opportunity to recycle, the exhaust just hangs out up there at 35,000 feet.
Now there's a graph I'd like to view for correlation.
basil_hayden wrote:Glaciers have been shrinking for 18,000 years.
The volume of anthropogenic CO2 and the effects we're seeing do not add up for me. I'm beginning to think that it's not so much the volume of CO2 we put in the atmosphere, but where we put it.
Example - Lots of ICEs were chugging around from 1900 to 1945 or so. There were a couple world wars, etc. - but this was near the surface primarily where it gets greater chance to be recylced.
Since about 1945, for the last 60 years anyway, a large quantity of CO2 has been produced as a result of jet engines, from airplanes, much higher in the atmosphere where it doesn't get as much of an opportunity to recycle, the exhaust just hangs out up there at 35,000 feet.
Now there's a graph I'd like to view for correlation.
basil_hayden wrote:Since about 1945, for the last 60 years anyway, a large quantity of CO2 has been produced as a result of jet engines, from airplanes, much higher in the atmosphere where it doesn't get as much of an opportunity to recycle, the exhaust just hangs out up there at 35,000 feet.
Graeme wrote:I just did a quick google search for CO2 distribution in atmosphere. Most appears to be concentrated in the polar regions particularly Antarctica. esa
Whereas water vapor is concentrated in equatorial regions. wikipedia
As a preliminary conclusion, I would say that aircraft do not have an affect on the distribution of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Barnett, Adam and Lettenmaier say the most vulnerable region where vanishing glaciers will impact water supplies in the coming decades is China, India and other parts of Asia because of their potential to affect vast populations throughout this region. The ice mass in the mountainous area of this region is the third largest on Earth following Arctic-Greenland and Antarctica .
There is further concern that drought and low water conditions will only worsen in coming years as more forest is cleared and glaciers in the Andes continue to retreat. Glaciers, which are the source for as much as 50% of the water in the upper Amazon, are fast disappearing in Peru. According to a 1997 study by the Peruvian government, the country's glaciers have shrunk by more than 20% in the past 30 years. Further, the National Commission on Climate Change in Lima projects that Peru will lose all its glaciers below 18,000 feet in elevation in the next decade and possibly all its glaciers within the next 40 years. The impact on the Amazon, when combined with deforestation, could be devastating to the region's climate, water cycle and economy.
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