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

Re:!millions

[iamapizza]

And millions is thousands and thousands is hundreds. They might as well take it further and just say "on which dozens of people depend for their water supplies. "

"massive brown cloud visible from space"

[Anonymous Coward]

...which links to a god damn diagram, not an actual picture from space of a massive brown cloud. Way to fail submitter.

Wow - a new low of spin-doctoring

[Anonymous Coward]

'Black soot is probably responsible for as much as half of the glacial melt, and greenhouse gases are responsible for the rest.'

Becomes:

Now Live Science reports that tiny particles of pollution known as 'black carbon' — and not heat-trapping greenhouse gases (...)

Quite shameless. I am almost impressed by the gall of the submitter...

here we have a nugget of scientific observation

[circletimessquare]

underneath we will have a shitstorm of politically biased comments

so i offer a third option, to climate change doubters and climate change believers:

1. who fucking cares whose fault it is

political recrimination gets us nowhere. its cold in the house because someone left the window open? ok, so you're going to sit there and scream at each other over who opened the window? here's a new idea: how about someone demonstrating actual responsibility and instead actually stand the fuck up, walk over, and close the fucking window: NO MATTER WHO LEFT IT OPEN

2. who fucking cares if we are heating up or cooling down or not changing

the fact is, we live here, and we are interested in controlling the thermostat. if it gets too cold, do something to turn it up. if it gets to hot, do something to turn it down. we are homo sapiens, this what we do: we do not adapt to our environment, we adapt our environment to us. we do not grow fur, we make clothes. we do not enter torpor at midday, we invent air conditioning

if you say we shouldn't mess with the weather, you are by extension denying the fact that we already are having an effect on the climate. so we might as well get involved with twiddling with the environment ON PURPOSE, because the notion that 6.5 billion humans can magically have no effect at all is a completely absurd premise on your part

this environmental attitude is the engineer's approach. fuck all of you capitalists, politicians, activists and hysterical whiners. the engineer will prevail here, because only we have the solution to what the rest of you simply bicker about

we need scientifically, factually sound well-researched methods for forcing change on our planet on purpose. and then we'll fix your fucking problem. something like seeding the dead zones of the ocean with iron

lets put it this way: make believe, for the moment, for the sake of argument, regardless of your beliefs, that

1. the earth is actually heating up
2. it is doing so because of nature, not man-made reasons

ok, well what are we supposed to do, just accept rising sea levels, melting glaciers and the sahara desert growing 25%?

no, we artificially introduce methods for cooling the earth down. we do this, #1, for selfish reasons, but also for #2: a preservation of current species and ecosystems, as a side effect. are you going to let the amazon dry up because you don't like the idea of man fiddling with the environment?

yes, the planet could continue to evolve new species without human intervention. but what is really going to happen is that this planet is going to become a museum, under human supervision, of the current catalog of species and ecosystems that have evolved so far. why? because we want to fucking live here, that's why

so, for the deniers in opposition to supposition #1 above: if you don't believe the earth is heating up, you still have to admit the earth has had historic swings in climate, and that we earthlings will have to intervene at some point, correct?

and for the believers in man-made change in opposition to supposition #2 above: you believe that climate change is caused by man, you have to admit that to fix the problem we have to do it PROACTIVELY. please don't try to sell me the moronic bullshit that 6.5 billion humans can live on this planet like ghosts. this is a different kind of denial than those who deny climate change, but no less foolish

imagine that: no pointless recriminations and blame games, no living in denial and sticking your head in the sand

commence with the retarded partisan bickering anyway. meanwhile, us engineers will roll up our sleeves and will actually go and fix your fucking problem while you political assholes do nothing but bicker

more action, less "hot air"