History vanishes with melting Himalayan glacier

[ellisonz]

By Stephanie Pappas
updated 12/13/2011 2:14:12 PM ET

SAN FRANCISCO — A half-century record of history has melted away from the Naimona'nyi glacier in southwestern Tibet, highlighting the changes coming to glaciers across the Himalayas.

Ice cores from glaciers capture a detailed history of the atmosphere and climate from the time when the snow and ice fell. They record dust, ash and even minute amounts of nuclear fallout from atmospheric nuclear tests conducted in the 1950s. It can all be seen in ice around the globe, from the Himalayas to the poles to the Alps.

But at Naimona'nyi, that evidence has all but disappeared.

"At least the top 50 years of this record has been obliterated," Mary Davis, an ice-core researcher at Ohio State University, reported here at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). "We surmise that perhaps it is gone because of melting."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45657315/ns/technology_and_science-science/#.TufXPOZyciw

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