Posted on 07/03/2007 5:26:41 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
SANTIAGO, Chile - Scientists on Tuesday blamed global warming for the disappearance of a glacial lake in remote southern Chile that faded away in just two months, leaving just a crater behind.
The disappearance of the lake in Bernardo O'Higgins National Park was discovered in late May by park rangers, who were stunned to find a 130-foot deep crater where a large lake had been.
After flying over the lake Monday scientists said they were able to draw preliminary conclusions that point to climate change as the leading culprit for the lake's disappearance.
They suggested the melting of nearby glaciers raised the lake's level to the point where the increased water pressure caused part of a glacier acting as a dam to give way. Water in the lake flowed out of the breach, into a nearby fiord and then to the sea, said Andres Rivera, a glaciologist with Chile's Center of Scientific Studies.
Rivera, accompanied by an expert from the Chilean Antarctic Institute, flew over the site in a navy airplane, taking hundreds of photographs.
"On one side of the Bernardo glacier one can see a large hole or gap, and we believe that's where the water flowed through," Rivera said in a navy communique. "This confirms that glaciers in the region are retreating and getting thinner."
He said that the bottom of the vanished lake again has some water, likely from the melting ice.
Similar phenomenon have occurred before in the southern Magallanes region.
As glaciers retreat lakes form behind natural dams of ice or moraine, earth and stones pushed up by a glacier. Those relatively weak dams can be breached suddenly, causing the lake to drain.
The advance and retreat of glaciers is part of the normal dynamics of the Patagonia but climate change was distorting the process, Rivera said.
"This would not be happening if the temperature had not increased," Rivera said.
The navy communique said the missing lake was the smaller of a two-lake system. The larger one remains but at a lower level.
This picture taken from a Chilean navy Monday, July 2, 2007, shows large pieces of ice and some areas with water at the bottom of a lake in southern Chile that was discovered dried up late may. Experts believe water flowed to a nearby fiord through a hole in a glacier at the northern end of the lake. (AP Photo/HO/Chile Navy)
But they couldn't blame us eeeeeeeeeevil American conservatives before.
Other References:
fwiw.. stumbled across this in search.. from 2003 or so
Glaciers In Retreat a Recurring Theme from around the Globe
http://www.nichols.edu/DEPARTMENTS/PHYSICALWORLD/glacier_retreat.htm
i think they found it in Texas...
I blame my speeding on “global warming.”
“They suggested the melting of nearby glaciers raised the lake’s level to the point where the increased water pressure caused part of a glacier acting as a dam to give way.”
Now, that’s some creative reasoning, there.
Now there is a sentence with a lot of wiggle room. Preliminary conclusions that point to a leading culprit. No less than 3 non-conclusions, and yet the headlines states the conclusion as unequivocal. This is why the world is going to hell in a handbasket: Humans are basically only a few centuries out of the wild, yet they are expected to be able to handle the level of thought that is required by modern technology.
Morons. This has happened before. The only thing it has to do with “global warming” is that this is the current religion of the marxists.
Who could possibly doubt them? /sarc
The glacier probably didn't so much "give way" as float on top of the lake water once the water depth got to 90% of the height of the ice, just like Glacial Lake Missoula. At that point, the water flows out under the ice.
Similar phenomenon have occurred before in the southern Magallanes region.
“This would not be happening if the temperature had not increased,” Rivera said
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Makes you kind of wonder why it happened before doesnt it?
Did it warm up before too?
lol...it had to go somewhere, sadly for the folks in Texas. Of course, most are just mad that they may not be able to BBQ tomorrrow.
There you go. The water is now in a fjord at the Northern end of the lake.
To quote the great Pat J. Buchanan, “Well said and exactly right.”
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