'90 per-cent Of Alpine Glaciers To Disappear'

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.