Tibet's lofty glaciers melt away

[FernBell]

The Qinghai-Tibet plateau is home to tens of thousands of glaciers, fields of ice at the roof of the world where Mount Everest and other Himalayan peaks look down on China and Nepal.

But the glaciers are melting faster than anyone thought, fresh research by Chinese scientists shows, as global warming speeds up the shrinkage of more than 80 per cent of the 46,377 glaciers on the lofty plateau.

.......

The rate of melting, estimated at some 7 per cent a year, has meant more water run-off from the plateau, which worsens soil erosion and leads to desertification.

It is an environmental nightmare for rivers such as the Yangtze, 20 per cent of which is fed by glaciers, while the Taklamakan Desert in north-west China could be flooded before later drying out, researchers say.

.......

"Almost all glaciers in China have already shown substantial melting," the UN Development Programme said in its 2006 Human Development Report. "This is a major threat to China's over-used and polluted water supplies. The 300 million farmers in China's arid western region are likely to see a decline in the volume of water flowing from the glaciers."


http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1990381.ece

[Muddy Waters Guitar]

1. Yet another thing the Rethug flat-earthers would try to deny

As North America is devastated by tornadoes and hurricanes, and other countries are hit themselves, the Rethugs in the US continue to chant, "see no evil, hear no evil." Losers.

[Kiouni]

2. The Dalai Lama

recently wrote about how when he was a child Tibet was a paradise. Animals were everywhere, sky's were clear and you could walk up to a stream and drink from it. Now it's over run with rats and all the animals are gone from deforestation. And as I understand it China just built a train so people could travel along and see the "spoils" of war.

[YankeyMCC]

3. k & r

[Ezlivin]

4. Climbing Mt. Everest in your shorts?

Damn. Every day it seems that we hear more news that the climate change is accelerating.

I hate to see us go out this way. Done in by our own mishandling of earth's natural resources....