[Reader-list] Fwd: Climate change in Ladakh

[mp]

hello,

ravleen saluja wrote:
> Hi,
> Just wanted to point out an error in this piece, which might have been a
> typo, but does make a difference. Ms Shiva says:
> 
> "The Gangotri glacier, the source of the Ganga is receding at 20-23 miles
> per
> year. Millam glacier is receding at 30m/yr, Dokrani is retreating at
> 15-20m/yr."
> 
> The total length of Gangotri is 30 kms so it possibly cannot be receding at
> the rate of 20-23 miles per year. When I went to Gaumukh, researchers at the
> field stations of various departments posted there told me that it is
> anything between 5-15 metres per year. Back in Delhi, even this estimate has
> been exaggerated but its certainly not 20-23 miles per year. I am not saying
> at all that global warming is not taking place but such figurative error can
> sensationalise the situation unneccarily.

Yes, these numbers are wrong. Here are some correct numbers from The
World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS):

(pasted from:
http://colonos.wordpress.com/2008/11/14/the-asian-brown-cloud-global-climate-chaos-and-tropical-glaciers/
 - which has links to sources)

“Some of the most dramatic shrinking has taken place in Europe with
Norway’s Breidalblikkbrea glacier thinning by close to 3.1 metres (2.9
metre water equivalent) during 2006 compared with a thinning of 0.3
metres (0.28 metres water equivalent) in the year 2005.

Other dramatic shrinking has been registered at Austria’s Grosser
Goldbergkees glacier, 1.2 metres in 2006 versus 0.3 in 2005; France’s
Ossoue glacier, nearly 3 metres versus around 2.7 metres in 2005;
Italy’s Malavalle glacier 1.4 metres versus around 0.9 metres in 2005;
Spain’s Maladeta glacier, nearly 2 metres versus 1.6 metres in 2005;
Sweden’s Storglaciaeren glacier, 1.8 metres versus close to 0.080 metres
in 2005 and Switzerland’s Findelen glacier, 1.3 metres versus 0.22
metres in 2005.”

But the worst threat to glaciers are in Peru (and Ecuador and Bolivia)
where many village communities have already run dry with consequent crop
failing.

Within the next 5-8 years, on a conservative estimate, more than 30
million people in Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador will be without water, in
particular in the big cities, La Paz, Lima and Quito and the problems
have already begun:

“The effect of diminishing glaciers is most evident in El Alto, an
indigenous community of 800,000 people perched above the capital of La
Paz. Waves of mostly Aymara immigrants – the satellite city is growing
at between 5 percent and 10 percent a year – arrive daily, fleeing the
poverty of their native highlands. With the disappearance of glacial
water supplies and a decrepit and poorly managed water company, the city
could soon suffer a severe water shortage, experts say” (Murphy 2008)

Living as we do in a world of accelerated urbanisation where already the
majority of the world’s population live in cities the pressure for the
circulation of water is increased dramatically and the problems thus
intensified:

“Ecuador’s Quito draws 50% of its water supply from the glacial basin,
and Bolivia’s La Paz, 30%. The volume of the lost glacier surface of
Peru is equivalent to 7,000 million cubic meters of water, that is about
ten years of water supply for Lima.”

-m