Posted on 05/08/2009 4:46:04 PM PDT by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at ecoworldly.com ...
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.
There used to be an ocean here in Denver.
Yeah and the Other side of the Mountain has 36 feet of Base..hahaha with powder Skiing hahaha such Jokers!!
Yes, but my hobby is to burn old tires, and my car runs on high-sulphur coal.
they forgot to tell you that this is their Fall and winter begins late June.. but thats me...
You win.
Most days a little Civic—a girl can’t be all things, after all.
So now it’s a roller board ramp. Things change.
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.
The f’in’ Mastodons and Woolly Mammoths lamented the end of the Ice Age too. Boo Hoo.
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.
Who would put a glacier that close to the equator? Of course its gonna melt!
It’s obviously a problem with black rocks turning brown. The evidence is right there. For $10 million, I can prove my hypothesis.
LLS
It didn’t disappear, it moved to Nepal (the glaciers are growing in the Himalayas).
Beware the envirowhacks wanting to "reintroduce" the glacier!
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