Potential "Ecological Landslide" Seen In Russian Thaw, Vanishing Glaciers

[hatrack]

EUROPE’S vanishing glaciers and melting permafrost in Siberia prompted scientists to raise new fears over global warming yesterday.
The dual concerns came as a high-altitude Alpine ski run closed yesterday for the first time because of a lack of snow.

Tour operators at Val Senales in Alto Adige, near Italy’s border with Austria, said that the run had never before had to close since it opened 30 years ago. High-altitude ski runs have also been closed in the Tonale Pass and at Marmolada, in the Dolomites. Walter Maggi, a geologist at Milan University, said that the closures had come after low rainfall in the spring and very high temperatures in June and July. “But there are deeper causes. The finger of suspicion points at global warming,” he said.

Scientists in Russia are more concerned about the thawing of vast tracts of permafrost in western Siberia. The melting permafrost peat bog across an area the size of France and Germany threatens to unleash vast amounts of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, scientists from Tomsk State University in western Siberia and Oxford University said. The huge frozen region, covering a million square kilometres of western Siberia, is rapidly turning into a watery landscape of shallow lakes. Experts fear that it could release billions of tonnes of methane trapped in the frozen peat.

In Italy, Signor Maggi estimated that Italy had lost 40 per cent of its glaciers since 1850, with a notable acceleration in the past three years. Glaciologists have noted the disappearance of glaciers across the Alps. The resulting fall in river levels has raised concern that water supplies to urban areas may be affected. Authorities in Lombardy yesterday warned hikers to avoid a glacier on Mount Ortles, from which a chunk of ice 52m high could break off. Three years ago the Belvedere glacier in the Alps formed an ice lake that threatened to flood the resort of Macugnaga. Engineers drained the lake while 700 inhabitants were moved to safety.

EDIT

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1730079,00.html

[rkc3]

1. Maybe global warming will help keep winter heating bills down.

Gotta look on the bright side.

[phantom power]

2. What's that they say about landslides....

Once the landslide has started, it's too late for the pebbles to vote.

[phantom power]

3. If this is happening, it should be pretty easy to measure, right?

[hatrack]

4. I would think that this is something along Charlie Keeling's lines

Methane's another one of the trace gases, and so, like CO2, should be pretty easy to track at Mauna Loa or Tromso or wherever the other stations are.