Black Soot May Be Aiding Melting In the Himalayas

Hugh Pickens writes "The Himalayas, home to some 10,000 glaciers, are the main source of replenishment to lakes, streams, and some of the continent's mightiest rivers, on which millions of people depend for their water supplies. Since the 1960s, the acreage covered by Himalayan glaciers has declined by more than 20 percent with a rate of warming twice the global average over the past 30 years. Now Live Science reports that tiny particles of pollution known as 'black carbon' — and not heat-trapping greenhouse gases — may be causing much of the rapid melting of glaciers in the Himalayas. 'Tibet's glaciers are retreating at an alarming rate,' says James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City. 'Black soot is probably responsible for as much as half of the glacial melt, and greenhouse gases are responsible for the rest.' The circulation of the atmosphere in the region causes much of the soot-laden air to 'pile up' against the Himalayas. The soot mixes with other dust from nearby deserts, creating a massive brown cloud visible from space that absorbs incoming solar radiation. As this layer heats up in the Himalayan foothills, it rises and enhances the seasonal northward flow of humid monsoon winds, forcing moisture and hot air up the slopes of the mountain range."

Comments

at last, a climate change scenario with facts

[rubycodez]

Global dimming, and this article, are actually based on real facts. We could have built meaningful case for mankind to change its polluting ways based on this kind of thing. Too bad the "climatologists" instead went for extrapolation and models based on natural solar maximums, and now are looking like idiots now that deep solar minimum is making the earth cool (temporarily, yes; part of up and down cycle, yes). And people like Al Gore and the director of CRU who had to step down made the most absurd and unfounded claims about near future events that no thinking person believes they have any credibility at all. A -ist is not an expert, it is a media label. A punk with a megaphone inciting riot is an "activist". A doped out hippie chained to a tree is an "activist". And a doomsayer alarmist getting grants and making models to please his political benefactors is a "climatologist". See, no real credentials or training necessary to be an "-ist", even if they have sheepskin scientific method has nothing to do with it.

no one's forcing you to do anything

[circletimessquare]

if you feel like all of these interests are compelling you to care, this shows problems with your own psychology, not the world around you

you're a hysteric. calm the fuck down and do whatever the hell you want. no one is forcing you to do anything