3C Rise In Summer Temps By 2100 = Loss Of 80% Of Alps' Glaciers - AFP

[hatrack]

The European Alps could lose some 80 percent of their glacier cover by the end of this century, if summer air temperatures rise by three degrees Celsius. And if temperatures increase by five degrees Celsius, the Alps would become almost completely ice-free by 2100. These are the conclusions of numerical modeling experiments by scientists from the University of Zurich, Switzerland. The study will be published 15 July in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

Scientists consider glaciers to be among the best natural indicators of climate change and, therefore, monitor them closely. Rapidly shrinking glacier areas, spectacular tongue retreats, and increasing mass losses are clear signs of the atmospheric warming observed in the Alps during the last 150 years.

Michael Zemp and colleagues in the Department of Geography of the University of Zurich note that in the 1970s, about 5,150 Alpine glaciers covered a total area of 2,909 square kilometers <1,123 square miles>.

This represented a loss of about 35 percent of glacial area from 1850 to that time. Accelerated loss of ice cover since then has resulted in a total loss of 50 percent of the 1850 area, culminating in a volume loss of 5 to 10 percent of the remaining ice during the extraordinary warm year of 2003.

EDIT

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Alpine_Glaciers_Could_All_But_Disappear_Within_This_Century_999.html

[Dembo98]

1. I know this...

is one of our big platforms(global warming) but I just haven't bought into the fact that we (people and civilization) are responsible for global warming. I mean, doesn't everyone concede the point that the earth is an ever-changing dynamic ecosystem. We have documented proof that temperatures on earth have changed over the centuries and eons. Interesting article but I'm not sure what we are supposed to do.

[NickB79]

2. The science is pretty much finished with the cause

Other than a few shills paid off by the oil industry, virtually no scientists contest the view that humans are influencing the climate of the planet. Now it is focusing on how bad it will get.

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

3. What are your scientific credentials? BTW, please quit using "we"

since you don't speak for most of the DU'ers here, based on your previous posts. MKJ

[Delphinus]

4. It looks like you're relatively new here,

but, truly, there are tons of books out in your library that you could read that would tell you the facts. Most of them state that mankind definitely has a hand in this global climate change. Even a really good history book will show you and you can figure it out for yourself. Cause and effect in a lot of cases.

The truth is out there.

[hatrack]

5. How do we know we're responsible for recent rapid warming? It's easy.

Basic chemistry, that's all.

Carbon has five isotopes if you count the basic form, Carbon 12, which makes up about 98.9% of all carbon found on earth. C14 is the one you're probably already familiar with, given its use in dating how old objects in archaeology and anthropology are. C13 is the stable isotope, unlike C14, its radioactive brother, but both make up a tiny fraction of all the C out there in the natural carbon cycle.

http://www.chemicalelements.com/elements/c.html

What scientists know is this - going back for thousands and thousands of years, the relative levels of these isotopes in the natural carbon cycle of plants and animals growing and dying and decaying has remained pretty much the same. They know this from testing glacial cores and snow and ice samples and sediment and fossilized animals and plants and the whole nine yards.

That is, the relative levels were pretty much the same until about 1750 or so, which is when we started burning lots of stuff as the Industrial Revolution got underway. First wood, then coal, now oil and gas, burned in huge quantities emitted enormous amounts of anthropogenic carbon into the atmosphere.

We know this with an even higher degree of specificity thanks to Roger Revelle and Charlie Keeling. It was Revelle who suggested during the IGY that scientists collaborate to take daily samples of atmospheric trace gases. He believed that the amount of C in the atmosphere was rising thanks to human activity and Keeling would prove him right. Since 1958 until today, every day, scientists around the world have sampled the air and found ever-higher amounts of C in the air.

What's definitive, though, is the isotope ratios. In recent years, the ratios of C13/C12 has declined substantially, and not coincidentally, the carbon contained in fossil fuels has a far lower ratio of C13/C12. On top of that, C14, though already a trace gas of a trace gas, has declined substantially as a percentage of the atmosphere since we began to burn fossil fuels in earnest. Fossil fuels, tens and hundreds of millions of years old, contain no C14, since it long since finished the process of radioactive decay. Finally, the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere is declining - since it's been displaced by billions of tons of CO2 we produce.

http://www.carleton.edu/departments/geol/DaveSTELLA/Carbon/carbon_intro.htm

There's also this excellent analysis from Daily Kos, of all places.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/7/7/104649/4911

[NNadir]

6. He (or she) is gone.

He disrupted poorly.

[hatrack]

7. That was fast - and after all that good stuff on carbon isotopes!

Go figure.

Well, time for another :beer:

[NNadir]

8. It in no way reflects on your fine post.

We've got a couple of professional skeptics showing up. It must be a full moon.

[hatrack]

9. Yeah, maybe more $9/hour hired twits with Scaife/Moon money?

That would fit.

Oh, just spent a delightful minute harpooning yet ANOTHER one.

[Delphinus]

10. As a matter of fact, it is/was a full moon.

Good call.

And I must say, this was my first post to someone who became a poor disruptor. I was surprised though, when I went to the Indiana forum after this, to see him/her there too! It was strange!

[Boomer]

11. It wasn't a wasted post

I read it -- and thanks!