World’s Highest Ski Run Melted Away

ecoWorldly.com ^ | 5/8/09 | Derek Markham

[NormsRevenge]

Bolivia’s Chacaltaya Glacier, once known as the world’s highest ski run at 17,388 feet, has completely melted away, serving as a vivid example of the effects of climate change on the glaciers around the globe.

“Chacaltaya has disappeared. It no longer exists.” - Dr. Edson Ramirez, Institute of Hydraulics and Hydrology at the Universidad Mayor de San Andres

In 1999, Ramirez, the head of a team of researchers studying the glacier since 1991, believed that the glacier would continue to exist until 2015, but the rate of melting tripled in the last ten years, and the once popular tourist destination is now completely gone.

Only a handful of dedicated skiers and tourists now visit Chacaltaya, which does have a tiny area to ski on snowy days (a run of maybe 600 feet) just down from the location of the former glacier. Alfredo Martinez, a founder of the Club Andino de Bolivia, says ”Very few come to ski now.”

The Chacaltaya glacier is part of Bolivia’s Tuni Condoriri glaciated mountain system, which has lost a third of its ice since 1983. The best guess from researchers is that Tuni and Condoriri, the two largest glaciers in the system, will not last more than 20 to 30 years. Illimani, a 21,200 foot mountain looming over La Paz, is home to several glaciers, which may melt completely within 30 years, said Ramirez.

“It’s very probable that other glaciers are disappearing faster than we thought.” - Ramirez

Ramirez sees the disappearance of Chacaltaya as an example of the effects of greenhouse gas accumulation and an increase in average temperatures worldwide, but says that the controversies over the validity of global warming are irrelevant, because the effects are apparent in the Andean glaciers.

[NormsRevenge]

[SIDENET]

I blame cow farts.

[Porterville]

the question is why?... to jump to the conclusion of global warming?... what does it look like today?

[ZX12R]

I blame cow farts.

Nope. Incandescents and fat people.

[Tarpon]

It’s winter so it will come right back ... It looks like the snow that is left over in the high Rockies. Some years it blocked the trails, other years it was all gone. Live with it.

[SIDENET]

Nope. Incandescents and fat people.

I'm guilty on both counts.

[Always Right]

In 1999, Ramirez, the head of a team of researchers studying the glacier since 1991, believed that the glacier would continue to exist until 2015, but the rate of melting tripled in the last ten years, and the once popular tourist destination is now completely gone.

So instead of dying when it was 1,953,456 years old, it died when it was 1,953,451 years old. The thing was shrinking and melting naturally.

[centurion316]

In the largeness of geologic time, glaciers come and glaciers go. There was once one right on top of my Kansas farm. But, idiots, that’s another matter. Idiots are forever and that’s what the AGW cultists most certainly are.

[taillightchaser]

BARF ALERT PLEASE

[mark3681]

So, turn it into the tallest mountain bike downhill and quit your whining.

[MarkeyD]

Has there been deforestation nearby?

[ZX12R]

I'm guilty on both counts.

It will be a desert by Tuesday, if you don't get your fat friends to exercise and use candles.

[twister881]

Woo-hoo, the mini-Ice Age is over! We're returning to more normal weather & temperature patterns. Longer growing seasons, with more people fed...less fossil fuel used to heat homes in the winter, reducing energy bills and air pollution...more work and commerce, reducing poverty worldwide. I think I'll turn on all my incandescents at the house, crank up the A/C, light a fire in the fireplace, drive my car around the neighborhood for fun, barbecue some steaks & burgers on the grill, drink some beer, and smoke a cigar.

Let's hope more glaciers melt!

[gargoyle]

...4 questions, yea? and? so? what?...

[jimfree]

“It’s very probable that other glaciers are disappearing faster than we thought.” - Ramirez

While glaciation expands elsewhere? Another blind man describing the elephant.

[SIDENET]

It will be a desert by Tuesday, if you don't get your fat friends to exercise and use candles.

I'm just going to go to Baskin Robbins and think glacial thoughts over some rocky road instead.

("Think globally, act glacially?")

[MarkeyD]

No way a peak at 17,388 feet is above 32 degrees. I blame the clean air act meaning more sunlight (sublimation) and less precipitation due to deforestation.

[edzo4]

[Doe Eyes]

So instead of dying when it was 1,953,456 years old, it died when it was 1,953,451 years old.

My guess would be that it formed during the last ice age, roughly 20,000 years ago.

[Always Right]

The last ice age started to end about 20,000 years ago, but it started over 100,000. My number was an order of magnitude off though, lol.

[beaversmom]

I may have you beat—I’m an incandescent, fat person who farts. I also buy meat which I carry home in a plastic bag.

[beaversmom]

There used to be an ocean here in Denver.

[philly-d-kidder]

Yeah and the Other side of the Mountain has 36 feet of Base..hahaha with powder Skiing hahaha such Jokers!!

[ZX12R]

I may have you beat—I’m an incandescent, fat person who farts. I also buy meat which I carry home in a plastic bag.

Driving an SUV both ways? Murderer! Planet Killer!

[SIDENET]

I may have you beat—I’m an incandescent, fat person who farts. I also buy meat which I carry home in a plastic bag.

Yes, but my hobby is to burn old tires, and my car runs on high-sulphur coal.

[philly-d-kidder]

they forgot to tell you that this is their Fall and winter begins late June.. but thats me...

[beaversmom]

You win.

[beaversmom]

Most days a little Civic—a girl can’t be all things, after all.

[BlueStateBlues]

So now it’s a roller board ramp. Things change.

[Doe Eyes]

The last ice age started to end about 20,000 years ago, but it started over 100,000.

I did a little looking, and if ice age is defined as the period when there are major areas of ice present on earth, versus periods of no ice, your original number may be correct.

[j_tull]

The f’in’ Mastodons and Woolly Mammoths lamented the end of the Ice Age too. Boo Hoo.

[eclecticEel]

The real question is why we believe glaciers are supposed to last forever. These things come and go; much of the country we live in used to be entirely covered with glaciers, and I doubt there’s a man among us who who would prefer things to go back that way.

[The Brush]

I remember when they were saying the same thing in 1012 B.C.
I remember I had a subscription to B.C. magazine then but cancelled it because it was becoming too Liberal.

[Delta 21]

Isnt Bolivia close to the equator?

Who would put a glacier that close to the equator? Of course its gonna melt!

[Bean Counter]

[ProtectOurFreedom]

It’s obviously a problem with black rocks turning brown. The evidence is right there. For $10 million, I can prove my hypothesis.

[LibLieSlayer]

Taken during different seasons... ecoterrorists lie... they must be part muslim.

LLS

[Juan Medén]

It didn’t disappear, it moved to Nepal (the glaciers are growing in the Himalayas).

[ApplegateRanch]

There was once one right on top of my Kansas farm.

Beware the envirowhacks wanting to "reintroduce" the glacier!

[odin2008]