According to a report on the New Scientist site, if global warming
continues at the current rate, up to 90 per-cent of glaciers in the
Alps will have melted by 2100.
The report, based on a 300-page study produced by the University
of East Anglia, suggests that there will be wide-sweeping climatic
changes over the next century. Northern Europe and the Alps will see
a '20-per-cent increase in flood risk' says one of the authors of the
report.
Rain will be concentrated into heavier bursts increasing the risk
of flooding as peak flow rates in northern rivers rise by 20
per-cent. In the Alps, the warmer weather will mean less snow but
more rain, which will flow straight into rivers in concentrated
bursts rather than thawing slowly and releasing water more
gradually.
By contrast southern areas of Europe will become drier and hotter
and central Spain will become a desert says the report.
Obviously this would have serious implications for climbers and
walkers in the Alps, where glacial recession is already evident and
warmer summers have led to greater incidence of rockfall and serac
collapse. Presumably many of the classic snow and ice-based
mountaineering routes would simply cease to exist as the snowfields
disappeared.
Presumably there would be similar implications in other major
mountain ranges. In the Andes, for example, there us already serious
glacial melting. Some passes mapped as glaciated in Bolivia 20 years
ago are now passable on foot as the snows retreat.
Subjectively conditions already seem to be becoming less stable in
high mountain areas. Recent seasons in the Andes, after the El Nino
of 1997 have seen very late, heavy snows with increased avalanche
risks and last autumn, unseasonal heavy snowfalls hit the popular
trekking areas of Nepal with walkers being helicoptered out from high
on the classic Everest Base Camp trek.
To see the full New Scientist story click
here.
sally hotchkin
