International Venezuela loses its last glacier as it shrinks down to an ice field

[LeonardoBjj]

Scientists reclassify Humboldt glacier, also known as La Corona, after it melted faster than expected

The Humboldt glacier in Venezuela in 2019. The country is thought to be the first to lose all its glaciers. Photograph: Jose Manuel Romero/AP

Venezuela has lost its last remaining glacier after it shrunk so much that scientists reclassified it as an ice field.

It is thought Venezuela is the first country to have lost all its glaciers in modern times.

The country had been home to six glaciers in the Sierra Nevada de Mérida mountain range, which lies at about 5,000m above sea level. Five of the glaciers had disappeared by 2011, leaving just the Humboldt glacier, also known as La Corona, close to the country’s second highest mountain, Pico Humboldt.

The Humboldt glacier was projected to last at least another decade, but scientists had been unable to monitor the site for a few years due to political turmoil in the country.

Now assessments have found the glacier melted much faster than expected, and had shrunk to an area of less than 2 hectares. As a result, its classification was downgraded from glacier to ice field.

“Other countries lost their glaciers several decades ago after the end of the little ice age but Venezuela is arguably the first one to lose them in modern times,” said Maximiliano Herrera, a climatologist and weather historian who maintains a chronicle of extreme temperature records online.

According to Herrera, Indonesia, Mexico and Slovenia are next in line to become glacier-free, with Indonesia’s Papua island and Mexico having experienced record-high warmth in recent months, which is expected to accelerate the glaciers’ retreat.

“The glacier at Humboldt does not have an accumulation zone and is currently only losing surface, with no dynamic of accumulation or expansion,” said Luis Daniel Llambi, an ecologist at Adaptation at Altitude, a programme for climate change adaptation in the Andes.

“Our last expedition to the area was in December 2023 and we did observe that the glacier had lost some 2 hectares from the previous visit in 2019, [down from 4 hectares] to less than 2 hectares now.”

The world has recently been experiencing the El Niño climate phenomenon, which leads to hotter temperatures and which experts say can accelerate the demise of tropical glaciers.

“In the Andean area of Venezuela, there have been some months with monthly anomalies of +3C/+4C above the 1991-2020 average, which is exceptional at those tropical latitudes,” said Herrera.

@Rod1 - Socialism is such a decease, they managed to loss even their own ice!

Llambi said Venezuela is a mirror of what will continue to happen from north to south, first in Colombia and Ecuador, then in Peru and Bolivia, as glaciers continue to retreat from the Andes.

“This is an extremely sad record for our country, but also a unique moment in our history, providing an opportunity to [not only] communicate the reality and immediacy of climate change impacts, but also to study the colonisation of life under extreme conditions and the changes that climate change brings to high mountain ecosystems.”

In a last-ditch attempt to save the glacier, the Venezuelan government has installed a thermal blanket to prevent further melting, but experts say it is an exercise in futility.

“The loss of La Corona marks the loss of much more than the ice itself, it also marks the loss of the many ecosystem services that glaciers provide, from unique microbial habitats to environments of significant cultural value,” said Caroline Clason, a glaciologist and assistant professor at Durham University.

@beargrills - The ice meltdown was all a CIA plan, because Maduro sufered massive shrinkage!

Venezuelan glaciers had a limited role in water provision for the region, in contrast with countries such as Peru, where tropical glaciers are much more extensive.

“The biggest impact for me of the disappearance of glaciers is cultural,” said Llambi. “Glaciers were a part of the region’s cultural identity, and for the mountaineering and touristic activities.”

Clason said: “That Venezuela has now lost all its glaciers really symbolises the changes we can expect to see across our global cryosphere under continued climate change. As a glaciologist, this is a poignant reminder of why we do the job and what is at stake for these environments and for society.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...st-glacier-as-it-shrinks-down-to-an-ice-field

 

[LeonardoBjj]

Andean alarm: climate crisis increases fears of glacial lake flood in Peru

In 1941, thousands of people died in Huaraz when the natural dam on a lake above the city gave way. Now, melting glaciers are raising the chances of it happening again

Photographs by Harriet Barber
by Sam Meadows in Huaraz, Peru

Lake Palcacocha is high in the Cordillera Blanca range of the Peruvian Andes, sitting above the city of Huaraz at an altitude of about 4,500 metres. When the lake broke through the extensive moraines, or natural dams, holding it in place on 13 December 1941, it sent nearly 10m cubic metres of water and debris into the narrow valley towards the city, 1,500 metres below.

The result was one of the most devastating glacial lake outburst floods – or “GLOFs” – ever recorded. The force of the water altered the area’s geography for ever, and killed at least 1,800 people, and possibly as many as 5,000.

Like all such lakes, Palcacocha was formed as a glacier receded, the water filling up the hollowed-out land around it. This process – and the floods that can result – is natural but now, scientists say, the climate crisis is increasing the risk it poses.

Peruvians stand on the site of a hotel in Huaraz, which was destroyed in December 1941 when flood waters from Lake Palcacocha, carrying thousands of tons of boulders, struck the city. Photograph: Bettmann Archive

Peru’s Cordillera Blanca, the eastern backdrop to Huaraz, has the world’s highest concentration of tropical glaciers. While the Himalayas are considered to pose more significant risks of floods, the large population of Huaraz makes the threat to life in this region far greater.

When disaster struck in 1941, Huaraz had a population of 12,000; it is now a thriving city of 120,000 people. “It’s one of the world’s only examples of a major city sitting right beneath a potential risk of a glacial lake flood,” says Neil Glasser, a geography professor at Aberystwyth University. “That makes Huaraz stand out.”

Memories of the 1941 disaster are still passed down through the generations, and those living on the flood path are acutely aware of the risks.

Olga Rosales-Jamanca, 39, lives in the community of Yarush – about six miles east of Huaraz in the valley leading to Palcacocha. Her grandfather told her stories of how he and his wife fled to higher ground during the 1941 flood.

Her father Alejandro, now 69, can also recall its effects. “Before the flood, all of this area was flat with food for animals,” he says. “But after, everything had changed.”

Olga and Alejandro were born in the farmhouse in which they still live, alongside Alejandro’s wife and Olga’s three children, aged one, 15 and 20. She is painfully aware of how devastating a flood could be to her family.

“It would cause a lot of damage to our properties. It would damage all of my efforts here on the farm. It’s a huge risk,” she says, cradling her youngest daughter, Luz.

“I’ve lived here all my life; I feel like this land is my mother,” she says. “My feelings and all my living experience are involved with this land.”

Down the valley, the densely populated district of Nuevo Florida would be the first part of Huaraz to be hit by a flood. Saúl Luciano Lliuya, a 43-year-old farmer and mountain guide, fears what could happen.

Luciano Lliuya has seen the glaciers and landscape shift due to the climate crisis. “The problem is unpredictable, so I don’t know where my family and I would be if it happened,” he says.

“The older guides told me about the mountains and how they are changing. As a farmer and a guide, I have noticed profound changes.”

For the past nine years, Luciano Lliuya has also been embroiled in a landmark legal case, supported by the development organisation Germanwatch, against the German energy company RWE over its alleged role in contributing to the climate crisis, increasing the risk to his home.

The case, which began in 2015, concerns whether RWE should contribute to mitigation measures. It could set a huge precedent for making polluters pay.

German judges visited Huaraz and the lake in May 2022. The next stage is an oral hearing to get expert opinions on flood risks this year.

RWE says the claim has “no legal basis” and “individual emitters are not liable for universally rooted processes”, such as the climate crisis. Whatever the outcome of the case, Luciano Lliuya hopes at least that it will raise awareness of the issue among authorities in Peru and abroad.

GLOFs can happen in two ways. Glacial lakes form behind moraines – natural dams formed by an accumulation of rock and soil left behind by a moving glacier. As glaciers melt, the water level can gradually increase and create greater pressure on the moraines, causing them to give way. Or an avalanche or earthquake could create a shift in the water level and cause it to tip over the moraine, flooding the area below.

A study published last year in Nature Communications suggested GLOFs threaten 15 million people globally. Last October a GLOF killed 92 people in Sikkim, a north-eastern Indian state bordering Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet.

The Paria and Auqui rivers merge in the Nueva Florida district of Huaraz.

While the exact cause of the 1941 Huaraz GLOF is unclear, scientists’ understanding of the phenomenon has grown in recent decades.

Ryan Wilson, an expert at Huddersfield University who analysed the lakes for the Peruvian government, says: “We now have a combination of satellite-based analysis, which then informs field-based analysis. Once you whittle it down to a collection of ‘interesting’ lakes, you can monitor them continuously using a satellite, which is something we couldn’t do before.”

Scientists warn that the climate crisis is having a serious impact on GLOFs. “If you look at the vast majority of scientific studies, they’re showing an overwhelming thinning of glaciers globally,” Wilson says. “That’s particularly the case in the Andes and Peru.”

- Those peruvian girls need a cold place to live. but sherdoggers say climate change is a mithy!

Glasser adds: “It’s undeniable: 99% of the world’s glaciers are receding. I think that’s inevitably a consequence of climate change.”

Wilson says people living downstream of such lakes need to be aware of the dangers. “We’ve got a situation where more lakes have expanded and appeared,” he says. “The key thing is education and making people understand.

“These are very high-magnitude floods that can be suddenly triggered. They can travel kilometres within 20 or 30 minutes, and it’s not much time to react.”

---

While the Peruvian authorities are aware of the risks and have taken steps to mitigate them, local people say more could be done. “A few years ago, the authorities did something to strengthen the lake’s structure, but this year, nothing,” says Rosales-Jamanca.

My daddy- Stop posting women pictures, Leo. You arent fooling nobody!

Inés Yanac, director of the local environmental organisation Wayintsik Perú “our house” in Quechua), says: “People are very worried about the risks of another flood. They are worried about a lack of water if there were a flood and about making the lake much more secure. The water is a vital resource for their animals and crops.”

She adds: “The authorities must solve this problem. There is some alarm system, but it has never been tested.”

Juan Torres Lázaro, of Inaigem, Peru’s glaciology institute, says the system had been tested but had “serious protocol deficiencies”. The regional government was approached for comment but has not replied.

Victor Morales-Moreno, 58, has been monitoring water levels at the lake every two hours for the past nine years. He is critical of how the issue is being managed, saying drainage pipes installed to lower the lake’s level are old and brittle, breaking at the first sign of tension.

Nevertheless, he is more sanguine about the risk. “I’m not worried about another flood because things are under control,” he says.

When an avalanche hit Palcacocha in January, the impact caused a 3-metre-high wave to surge across the lake. Thankfully, it did not cause a GLOF, but Morales-Moreno says all 10 pipes were broken and needed to be replaced. “The pipes are old, and with these high temperatures, they get very dry – they need to be changed.”

Torres Lázaro is now assessing the risk from lakes but it is slow work. Four were completed last year, and another four are scheduled for 2024.

“In 2022, things were calm. But last year and this year, we had two avalanches, which has increased the government’s interest,” he says. “Now, according to the limits, it is considered a risk.”

https://www.theguardian.com/global-...s-palcacocha-huaraz-andes-peru-climate-crisis

 

[CantCucktheTuck]

Good

 

[Koro_11]

Huge if true.

 

[gspieler]

Totally not because of climate change.

 

[no fat chicks]

Good

Worst edgelord gimmick we've seen.


oceans are hitting record surface Temps all year so far btw.

 

[jefferz]

Good

So edgy….

 

[Sweater of AV]

I don't know what's sadder; the last glacier melting or the combined IQ of the first two people responding being in the single digits.

 

[GearSolidMetal]

Oh no, not another glacier in South America lost to above-freezing temperatures.

How will everyone survive without Venezuela having at least one glacier?

 

[HomeCheese]

It was crazy last week in Bangkok, 42 degrees. It has been beautiful here but places like Thailand are having their hottest year on record, like alarmingly hot.

 

[nicapica]

Damn even glaciers want nothing to do with Venezuela.

 

[Blunderbuss]

Popped for the indigenous Lego men

 

[Osculater]

The Venezuelan glacier left because it is seeking asylum in the U.S.

 

[cottagecheesefan]

Yet another reason to say, “fuck socialism”

 

[no fat chicks]

Yet another reason to say, “fuck socialism”

I'm sorry what?

 

[Beechwood]

Bjorn Lomborg: 7 myths about climate change​

Bjorn Lomborg: 7 myths about climate change

As the COP26 summit meets over the next couple of weeks in Glasgow, we can all expect to be bombarded with disaster scenarios, replete with stories about our species’ imminent demise. Over the last couple of days, we have had Boris Johnson warning that it is “one minute to midnight” and Prince...

unherd.com

As the COP26 summit meets over the next couple of weeks in Glasgow, we can all expect to be bombarded with disaster scenarios, replete with stories about our species’ imminent demise. Over the last couple of days, we have had Boris Johnson warning that it is “one minute to midnight” and Prince Charles claiming that this is “literally our last chance saloon”. And of course, Greta Thunberg has already made a few appearances of her own, accusing politicians of “pretending to take our future seriously” and saying that COP26 will “lead us nowhere”.
Bjorn Lomborg takes a different view. His latest book, ‘False Alarm: how climate change panic costs us trillions, hurts the poor, and fails to fix the planet’ sets out his argument that, although climate change is a real problem and is mostly man-made, the panic and alarmism is counter-productive. He spoke to Freddie Sayers:

The UN estimates we will live much longer — possibly up to about 100 years by the end of the century — we’ll all be literate, we’ll have much higher education, all these other things. So it’s important to recognise global warming is not the end of the world. It’s not the reason why kids should say, “why should I bother going to school?” It’s a problem among many other problems that we need to fix.

- Bjorn Lomborg, UnHerdTV
Lomborg challenges seven common myths about climate change:



Myth 1. “Small islands are doomed by rising sea levels”

We constantly hear Micronesia, the Maldives or Seychelles or something is going to be flooded and they’re only like a metre or two metres above sea level…What happens is most of these islands are coral islands, so they have actually occurred because they break off dead coral when there’s storms and wash it ashore. That accretes to the island and makes the island higher. At the same time, of course, a sea level rise makes the island lower. But it turns out that at least for now, and probably in the foreseeable future, the accretion is higher than the sea level rise.

- Bjorn Lomborg, UnHerdTV
Myth 2: “Extreme weather events are killing more people”

If you take a graph of how many people die from climate related disasters, we have good data for that for the last 100 years. In the 1920s, about half a million people died each and every year from climate disasters. A lot of them were floods and droughts, especially in China and India that you’ve never heard of. What’s happened since then is that it’s declined dramatically. So in the 2010s, we were down to 18,000 deaths, so about 96% reduction in deaths. And last year, it was down to 14,000 or so in 2020. And in 2021, we don’t obviously have the whole year yet, but it looks like 2021 is set to be even lower at about 6000.

- Bjorn Lomborg, UnHerdTV
Myth 3: “Climate lockdowns are a good solution”

The first thing to realise is despite the fact that we shut down the entire world in 2020, we still emitted almost as much. We probably cut our emissions about 6% globally. That’s because we still have to heat our homes. We sat at home and Zoomed instead and used electricity in that way. So when you shut down one thing you end up doing something else. And so yes, you can cut your emissions a little bit. But it turns out that it’s really hard to shut down dramatically. For example, when China was most shut down, it still emitted 84% of its normal emissions.

- Bjorn Lomborg, UnHerdTV
Myth 4: “Electric cars don’t harm the environment”

Electric cars are being sold as net zero. But what they actually are is that they’re zero when they’re driving. But much of the energy that you tank up your car, unless you live in Norway, is basically fossil fuel. And of course, most of the battery is produced in China or somewhere else where it emitted a lot of co2 typically from coal fired power plants.

- Bjorn Lomborg, UnHerdTV
Myth 5: “Polar bears are going extinct on melting ice caps”

First of all, remember the polar bears lived through the last time there was probably no ice in the Arctic, which was five to eight thousand years ago. So clearly, it’s not the end of the world for them. But also, and we need to recognise we’re still seeing a trending upwards of polar bears…We’ve probably gone from somewhere between five and ten thousand polar bears, up till today, where we have about 25,000 polar bears

- Bjorn Lomborg, UnHerdTV
Myth 6: “Stop eating meat to save the planet”

The reality is that going meat free is only going to do a little bit for climate. We often hear that, ‘Oh, it’s 50% of your food intake’, and you only hear the 50% so you can apparently reduce 50%. But it’s only 50% of your food emissions. So the reality is, when you look at the total impact it’s about 4%.

- Bjorn Lomborg, UnHerdTV
Myth 7: “Wildfires are getting worse, and proof of climate change”

We’ve actually seen that wildfire has been declining in amount of burnt area pretty much every year since 1900…Overall, Australia for instance had one of its lowest burns ever. It used to burn in the early 1900s about 12% of the area of Australia every year. It went down to about 6-8%, typically in the early 2000s. In 2019/20 it burned a little less than 4%.

- Bjorn Lomborg, UnHerdTV
Our thanks to Bjorn for a lively and informative discussion.

 

[Sweater of AV]

Bjorn Lomborg: 7 myths about climate change​

Bjorn Lomborg: 7 myths about climate change

As the COP26 summit meets over the next couple of weeks in Glasgow, we can all expect to be bombarded with disaster scenarios, replete with stories about our species’ imminent demise. Over the last couple of days, we have had Boris Johnson warning that it is “one minute to midnight” and Prince...

unherd.com

As the COP26 summit meets over the next couple of weeks in Glasgow, we can all expect to be bombarded with disaster scenarios, replete with stories about our species’ imminent demise. Over the last couple of days, we have had Boris Johnson warning that it is “one minute to midnight” and Prince Charles claiming that this is “literally our last chance saloon”. And of course, Greta Thunberg has already made a few appearances of her own, accusing politicians of “pretending to take our future seriously” and saying that COP26 will “lead us nowhere”.
Bjorn Lomborg takes a different view. His latest book, ‘False Alarm: how climate change panic costs us trillions, hurts the poor, and fails to fix the planet’ sets out his argument that, although climate change is a real problem and is mostly man-made, the panic and alarmism is counter-productive. He spoke to Freddie Sayers:

The UN estimates we will live much longer — possibly up to about 100 years by the end of the century — we’ll all be literate, we’ll have much higher education, all these other things. So it’s important to recognise global warming is not the end of the world. It’s not the reason why kids should say, “why should I bother going to school?” It’s a problem among many other problems that we need to fix.

- Bjorn Lomborg, UnHerdTV
Lomborg challenges seven common myths about climate change:



Myth 1. “Small islands are doomed by rising sea levels”

We constantly hear Micronesia, the Maldives or Seychelles or something is going to be flooded and they’re only like a metre or two metres above sea level…What happens is most of these islands are coral islands, so they have actually occurred because they break off dead coral when there’s storms and wash it ashore. That accretes to the island and makes the island higher. At the same time, of course, a sea level rise makes the island lower. But it turns out that at least for now, and probably in the foreseeable future, the accretion is higher than the sea level rise.

- Bjorn Lomborg, UnHerdTV
Myth 2: “Extreme weather events are killing more people”

If you take a graph of how many people die from climate related disasters, we have good data for that for the last 100 years. In the 1920s, about half a million people died each and every year from climate disasters. A lot of them were floods and droughts, especially in China and India that you’ve never heard of. What’s happened since then is that it’s declined dramatically. So in the 2010s, we were down to 18,000 deaths, so about 96% reduction in deaths. And last year, it was down to 14,000 or so in 2020. And in 2021, we don’t obviously have the whole year yet, but it looks like 2021 is set to be even lower at about 6000.

- Bjorn Lomborg, UnHerdTV
Myth 3: “Climate lockdowns are a good solution”

The first thing to realise is despite the fact that we shut down the entire world in 2020, we still emitted almost as much. We probably cut our emissions about 6% globally. That’s because we still have to heat our homes. We sat at home and Zoomed instead and used electricity in that way. So when you shut down one thing you end up doing something else. And so yes, you can cut your emissions a little bit. But it turns out that it’s really hard to shut down dramatically. For example, when China was most shut down, it still emitted 84% of its normal emissions.

- Bjorn Lomborg, UnHerdTV
Myth 4: “Electric cars don’t harm the environment”

Electric cars are being sold as net zero. But what they actually are is that they’re zero when they’re driving. But much of the energy that you tank up your car, unless you live in Norway, is basically fossil fuel. And of course, most of the battery is produced in China or somewhere else where it emitted a lot of co2 typically from coal fired power plants.

- Bjorn Lomborg, UnHerdTV
Myth 5: “Polar bears are going extinct on melting ice caps”

First of all, remember the polar bears lived through the last time there was probably no ice in the Arctic, which was five to eight thousand years ago. So clearly, it’s not the end of the world for them. But also, and we need to recognise we’re still seeing a trending upwards of polar bears…We’ve probably gone from somewhere between five and ten thousand polar bears, up till today, where we have about 25,000 polar bears

- Bjorn Lomborg, UnHerdTV
Myth 6: “Stop eating meat to save the planet”

The reality is that going meat free is only going to do a little bit for climate. We often hear that, ‘Oh, it’s 50% of your food intake’, and you only hear the 50% so you can apparently reduce 50%. But it’s only 50% of your food emissions. So the reality is, when you look at the total impact it’s about 4%.

- Bjorn Lomborg, UnHerdTV
Myth 7: “Wildfires are getting worse, and proof of climate change”

We’ve actually seen that wildfire has been declining in amount of burnt area pretty much every year since 1900…Overall, Australia for instance had one of its lowest burns ever. It used to burn in the early 1900s about 12% of the area of Australia every year. It went down to about 6-8%, typically in the early 2000s. In 2019/20 it burned a little less than 4%.

- Bjorn Lomborg, UnHerdTV
Our thanks to Bjorn for a lively and informative discussion.

Everything about this is absolute comedy but this might be the funniest part:

First of all, remember the polar bears lived through the last time there was probably no ice in the Arctic, which was five to eight thousand years ago.

Lol. These idiots say the dumbest shit.

 

[Natural Order]

Totally not because of climate change.

Nobody denies climate changes ding dong. These glaciers have been receding for thousands of years and have had multiple eras of yo-yo effect on their glaciers due to the tropical climate. You’re forgetting the unquantified “anthropological” part and its a pretty important distinction to make.

The remnant of this last glacier has been 2 square kms for the last 30 years.

 

[Rod1]

@LeonardoBjj

 

[Rod1]

Yet another reason to say, “fuck socialism”

Not even myself would blame socialism on this one.