Rock Faces Crumbling On Famous Mountains Across Europe

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"Many of the world’s most spectacular high-mountain rock faces could start crashing down at alarming rates due to global warming, scientists are predicting. As well as changing the very shape and appearance of classic mountains, some of the climbs themselves could also disappear as higher temperatures destabilise the rocks by thawing the permafrost beneath them.

In Europe, concerns about disintegrating rock faces were brought into sharp focus last year when at least 50 people died in the Alps as a result of collapsing escarpments. In a year that saw some of the highest summer temperatures for decades, many mountain paths, including classic routes on Mont Blanc, were closed because of the increased risk to mountaineers. On the Matterhorn, the collapse of part of the Hornli Ridge, the easiest and the most popular route up the mountain, stranded 80 climbers who had to be airlifted off by mountain rescue services.

Because there was no unusual snowfall or rainfall to trigger the incidents, geologists suspected that thawing of the permanently frozen interior of the rocks was to blame. Now, a new computer model, developed at the University of Zurich, adds weight to this explanation, the journal New Scientist reports today.

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Michael Davies, from the University of Dundee, found from his own work that rock faces could become unstable well before permafrost melts completely. Ice normally acts like glue and helps to hold rocks together, but experiments he carried out showed that, as it begins to warm, permafrost loses its strength, making the cracks and joints in a rock face less stable. "This means temperatures don’t have to rise above freezing to make a rock face become unstable," he said. "Global warming could have an effect sooner than we thought." One-quarter of the Earth’s land surface is frozen, with some of this permafrost in mountain ranges. If global mean temperatures rise by as much as 1.3C over the next 20 years, as predicted, geographers believe that mountain ranges from the Himalayas to the Andes will be affected as permafrost starts to thaw."

EDIT

http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=836672004

[treepig]

1. and more literally, in new hampshire, too

once again, the usa is a trendsetter, YAY(?)