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Rising Temperatures Could Melt Most Himalayan Glaciers By 2100 (nationalgeographic.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Rising temperatures in the Himalayas, home to most of the world's tallest mountains, will melt at least one-third of the region's glaciers by the end of the century (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source) even if the world's most ambitious climate change targets are met, according to a report released Monday. If those goals are not achieved, and global warming and greenhouse gas emissions continue at their current rates, the Himalayas could lose two-thirds of its glaciers by 2100, according to the report, the Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment. Under those more dire circumstances, the Himalayas could heat up by 8 degrees Fahrenheit (4.4 degrees Celsius) by century's end, bringing radical disruptions to food and water supplies, and mass population displacement. Glaciers in the Hindu Kush Himalayan Region, which spans over 2,000 miles of Asia, provide water resources to around a quarter of the world's population. One of the most complete studies on mountain warming, the Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment was put together over five years by 210 authors. The report includes input from more than 350 researchers and policymakers from 22 countries.
It's because of the Tibetan Plateau and Himalayas. Moist air flowing off the Indian Ocean gets pushed up into the atmosphere by the mountains, condenses, falls as snow, then melts as runoff to feed the Yellow and Yangtze rivers in China, and the Ganges, Indus, and Brahmaputra Rivers of the Indian subcontinent.
That's great, but we are talking about the glaciers, not the cycle you just mention.
That cycle would continue - and with higher average temperatures, that means greater water evaporation from the oceans, leading to more moisture falling in the mountains, thus more runoff for the rivers.
So why should those governments be concerned, when they will be getting more water - not less? That's the effect a warmer planet has, more resources and a wider growing range for agriculture (those glaciers all melting means that more plants can grow at higher altitudes than was the case previously).
To me I am sensing more than a little undercurrent of worry from governments at what happens when poorer regions of the earth suddenly have a surplus of output and are not as reliant on aid from the west... so they try and scare everyone.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Good predictive science is about making the best extrapolations you can with the data and theory you have.
Except that is not what they did. Taking a ruler and drawing a tangent to a curve is drafting not science.
Nothing is linear over an 80 year timeframe. If you look at CO2 emissions, they are rising overall. But they are falling in some developed countries, and have reach an inflection point in many more. The technology that has made this possible will spread, as it always does, to the rest of the world.
If instead of a simple linear projection, the first derivative and (especially) second derivative, are taken into account, the projection looks very different. But not as scary, which was the whole point.
Laughably false. Wind and solar passed coal in cost effectiveness years ago, and that was with allowing coal to externalize its environmental costs.
LOL, "immediately" in the context of nuclear power. Where it takes decades to build a nuclear power plant. The time and costs of nuclear power make it completely unjustifiable.
Not as tiring as the nuclear fanboy cult. And it's not an insult when it's true.
This. I'm not alive at 2100, I have no kids, and I'm tired of trying to keep yours from suffering from your idiocy.
Go for it. Burn the coal. Why the fuck should I give a shit?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Since Trump got elected, I've been waiting for liberals to call for ending elections since they aren't winning.
In my lifetime, liberals have turned against...
Free speech
Right to own firearms to defend yourself
Right to privacy (See FISA abuses under Obama)
Now they are starting to talk about getting rid of elections
Yep, you are going full dictatorship, and I'll be here to point it out so other people don't join you.