I love numbers. They bring a precision to information that language often lacks. Like the number 43. Here, allow me to let Mattheiu Ricard, a Buddhist monk and a scientist living in Nepal to explain the importance of numbers.
In the beautiful kingdom of Bhutan, where I spent nine years, recent investigations by the only glaciologist in the country, Kharma Thoeb, have shown that a natural moraine dam that separates two glacial lakes in the Lunana area is today only 31 meters deep, in comparison to 74 meters in 2003. If this wall gives way, some 53 million cubic meters of water will rush down the valley of Punakha and Wangdi, causing immense damage and loss of life. Altogether there are 400 glacial lakes in Nepal and Bhutan that may break their natural dams and flood populated areas lower in the valleys. If these floods occur, the glaciers will increasingly shrink. This will cause drought, since the streams and rivers will not be fed by melting snow.
You may have noticed that he didn’t mention the number 43. He does say, however that the natural moraine damn separating these two two glacial lakes high in the Himalayas is 31 meters thick today when it used to be 74 meters thick in 2003. I am no scientist but I do know my way around a calculator. Seventy-four minus thirty-one equals 43 meters. And do you know what else my calculator tells me? That this natural dam has lost 5.375 meters of thickness per year since 2003.
For people like me who are metrically challenged I found a handy website that converts meters into feet and inches. Forty-three meters is the same as 141 feet and 1 inch. That’s a lot of shrinkage in only eight years.
By the way, if you don’t know what a natural moraine dammed lake is, well I was also ignorant like you until my friend Google helped helped me find someone more knowledgeable than I to enlighten me. Thus a moraine is:
Any accumulation of unconsolidated material (e.g. clay, silt, sand, gravel, cobbles, boulders) deposited by glacial ice; an accumulation of till. Till refers to material deposited by glacial ice. Thus moraines are composed of till.
Terminal moraines represent a moraine that is formed from material deposited at the end of a glacier. Terminal moraines can form natural dams that allow for the creation of glacial lakes when the glacier melts. Unfortunately, such dams can become unstable and create a risk of rapid flooding when they deteriorate.
Moraine-dammed glacial lakes, which are still in contact or very near to the glaciers, are usually dangerous. In most of the literature/reports, the term ‘glacier lake’ is used for such lakes, and the term ‘glacial lakes’ used for glacier erosion lakes and glacier cirque lakes. […] These end moraines are loose and unstable in nature. The advance and retreat of the glacier affect the hydrology between the present-day glacier and the lake dammed by the moraines.
Indeed, the second largest glacial flood on record occurred in the United States as the result of a terminal moraine dam that burst. That incident occurred on August 14, 2002 when the Russell Lake moraine dam in Alaska collapsed:
The trapped water in the 70-square-mile lake broke free to the ocean on Aug. 14 in a spectacular roiling and chaotic 36 hours, making the torrential channel into the sea an extremely fast-moving and dangerous river full of large chunks of ice and debris, and resulting in both U.S. Coast Guard and National Weather Service advisories.
The rushing river created by the discharge was about 300 feet wide and 600 to 700 feet long, said Trabant.
Sounds pretty exciting. I’m sure it was something to see, from a safe distance, of course. Fortunately, the water that was released simply emptied the lake (now a fjord) into the sea. Moraine dams can collapse due to earthquakes or avalanches, but more often they fail because of erosion of the dam from an excessive snow melt or rain. The results can be devastating:
As the subsequent floodwater moves down valley, it entrains sediment and can form a debris flow. One such debris flow, initiated by a glacial lake flood in Peru in 1941, devastated the city of Huaraz, killing over 6000 people.
As Mattheiu Ricard points out in his Op-Ed in the New York Times, the Himalayas in the Tibetan Plateau contain over 40,000 glaciers and the ice contained within them is melting more rapidly than at the North and South poles. How rapidly?
[The Tibetan Plateau] is melting at a rate three to four times faster than the North and South Poles. The melting is particularly accelerated in the Himalayas by the pollution that settles on the snow and darkens the glaciers, making them more absorbent to light.
But who cares you might ask? Well, once all these natural dams break (and they will) the people who depend upon the glaciers for water will see their homes and fields all flooded away. You know like the people in Pakistan and Nashville last year, or Australia earlier this year or in Minot, South Dakota right now. All of these floods are consistent with a rapidly warming world caused by the release greenhouse gases from human activities.
However, the concern with the effect of a warmer climate in the region of the Tibetan Plateau is not solely related to the risk of flooding, as dangerous to the local inhabitants as that may be. The long term risk is to the watersheds fed by the glaciers that billions of people rely upon for agriculture and drinking water.
According to international development agencies, about half of the populations of China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, India and Pakistan depend on the watershed from the rivers of the Tibetan plateau for their agriculture, general water supply, and, therefore, survival. The consequences of the drying up of these great rivers will be catastrophic.
Yet the vast majority of the world’s governments and many of their citizens continue to ignore this problem. Not just the problem of glaciers melting or ever greater floods and droughts, but also the threat posed by heat waves, sea level rise, plant and animal extinction, ocean acidification, and so on and so forth. And this is not merely the fault of the Climate Change Denial Industry’s propaganda and ongoing disinformation campaigns.
Much of the problem is that too may people don’t want to believe climate change is a serious issue we must deal with now. They are willing to believe the lies because the truth staring them in the face is to use a term that has become a cliche, inconvenient. To accept the reality of the threat posed by climate change means that you must you and billions of other people also must accept that the way we live and go about their business on this planet each day must change. Let me quote Mattheiu Ricard one more time because he illustrates this point far better than I with a simple yet effective little parable:
Imagine a ship that is sinking and needs all the available power to run the pumps to drain out the rising waters. The first class passengers refuse to cooperate because they feel hot and want to use the air-conditioner and other electrical appliances. The second-class passengers spend all their time trying to be upgraded to first-class status. The boat sinks and the passengers all drown. That is where the present approach to climate change is leading.
Many in America have been living with the delusion that we can waste as much energy as we like, that we can drive inefficient carbon emitting cars as much as we like, and that we can slice the tops off mountains and drill in the deepest parts of the oceans to find the dirty little fossil fuels we need to maintain our inordinately wasteful lifestyles. Like all fairy tales it sounds so wonderful that many of us have been seduced into demonizing the scientists and environmentalists who keep trying to warn us that the fairy tale lies aren’t true.
Republicans and conservatives like to talk about accountability, yet they refuse to practice what they preach when it comes preserving our only home, planet Earth. They willingly take the campaign contributions and think take donations from people like the Koch Brothers and Exxon and so many others whose financial interests depend upon maintaining the fairy tale. Even many Democratic politicians have retreated from pulling away the shroud of lies that obscure the dangers we face because it “isn’t the right time” or it’s “not politically feasible right now” or whatever other excuse they can come up with to avoid making the case for the truth.
Well boys and girls, I can’t tell you precisely what the world will be like in five or ten or fifty years if we continue riding the fossil fuel train for as long as Big Oil and Big Coal can make billions of dollars in profits off our reliance on their products. I can tell you this, though: it won’t be anything like Disney World’s Tomorrowland nor will it resemble the Magic Kingdom either. And anyone who tries to convince you otherwise is a fool or a charlatan.
Weren’t people saying a while ago that the EPA was finally going to do it’s job and regulate emissions?
I think you typo’d in 33 where you meant 43 a few places in the article. It’s also throwing off your meteres -> feet conversion.
Don’t mean to nitpick, but I think it’s important in this case!
Fixed. Thanks
IIRC, while the Himalayan glaciers are melting from global warming, they are getting some extra melty goodness from soot deposits from coal-burning.
Coal: it just keeps on giving, on oh so many ways.
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Can’t find any reference to Kharam Thoeb in Bhutan. I did find a reference to Karma Toeb and the IPCC Report IV which has been thoroughly debunked on glacier melt in the Himalayas. Remember the receding Himalya glaciers and the year 2035 … oops, maybe 2335??
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Another nitpick: Minot is in North Dakota, not South.
I used to think that people wouldn’t care about climate change until the catastrophic effects started hitting this country. But we’ve had quite a run this year – floods, blizzards, tornadoes, drought, wildfires, etc., with hurricane season coming soon – and still nobody cares.
Well, nobody who makes policy, anyway.
Excellent Article! I view Global warming (I’ll be damned if I switch to “climate change”. No PC here!) as being caused by a number of factors including some natural. However, Global Warming (GW) is like a car rolling down hill, a number of factors can be causing it to roll downhill, but only one thing will cause it to rapidly accelerate (delta) as it rolls!
This factor relative to the GW delta is AEROPLANES, specifically Jet Airliners. You might have noticed that there is NO DISCUSSION about the contribution of jet airliner exhaust to the rapid increase in the rate of GW. Commercial jet airliners are proliferating around the globe like rabbits, unfortunately without the “green” environmental friendly natural characteristics of rabbits.
The tragedy for the future of humanity is that NO ONE is even studying the combined effects of the following parameters on the GW delta(a) the overall effect and pollution discharge of jet engines upon the environment. (b) The types and fuel consumption capacity and efficiencies of jet engines now in service. (c) A solid calculation of the effective airborne miles of the scheduled routes traveled by all of the passenger and freight airliners in the world. (d) Staring with the aircraft sales at the recent 2011 Paris Air show, come up with a solid “guess” as to the number and types of planes likely to be placed into service over the next two years. (The accounting for this item is in itself formidable. for example Airbus received orders from 16 customers for 730 of their A320neo aircraft, of which 418 were firm purchase orders and 312 were purchased with Memoranda of Understanding (MOU).)
Among the also ran aircraft manufacturers in sales at the 2011 Paris Air show, Boeing did not fare as well as Airbus. However it still landed its share of orders, somewhere around 200+ orders. Bombardier aircraft also received 143 orders for new aircraft of which 113 were firm purchase orders. So much for the need to track the largest generation source of high altitude air pollution effecting GW.
To finish up this brief look at the Airlines contribution to the delta GW, I would like to cite several sources on this subject. From the Northwest Environment Watch written by Elisa Murray these key points. “Flight is one of the most fuel-guzzling forms of passenger transportation. Airlines compensate for their high fuel bills by packing passengers into their aircraft, but, per mile, powering a jet uses almost as much energy, and emits almost as much climate-changing carbon dioxide, as each passenger would use driving alone in an average car OVER THE SAME DISTANCE. (Note: The emphasis is mine.) Carbon dioxide has the same effects on climate no matter when or where it is injected into the atmosphere. But other aircraft emissions-such as nitrogen oxides-have potent, climate changing effects because of the ELEVATION at which they are released Over the short term, they more than double the effects of the CO2 alone. Over time, these other pollutants disappear, but the carbon dioxide remains aloft capturing heat for decades.” (Once again the emphasis on ELEVATION is mine.)
One final point. The airlines have been releasing reports of new engine development which promises to lower fuel cost and make the traveling skies a little more “green”. If we take a look at the projected savings in fuel for one aircraft for one year, it will certainly provide some idea of the scalar size for the tonnage of pollutants being sprayed aloft in the upper atmosphere 24/7 by thousands of airliners traveling their respective routes.
This specification is provided by the international Air Transportation Association (IATA) and they are referencing an example.
“For Example: A 1% saving in fuel for an A320 or B737-300 aircraft will result in a yearly reduction of fuel consumption by 100 metric tons (32,835 US Gal) and save airlines approximately USD$50,000 per aircraft. It will also decrease the emission of pollutants by the following amounts:
318.7 tons of CO2;
123.9 tons of H20;
2.112 tons of NO2;
98 kg of SO2; and
56 kg of CO.”
Just a 1% saving will decrease the CO2 by 318.7 tons for one year? Hence if we multiply 318.7 by the 99% and add the result to 318.7, we should get the estimated CO2 tonnage for the year for this ONE aircraft. According to my calculator this would create 100,872.69 tons of CO2 into the environment, all of which would be sprayed into the upper atmosphere with the exception of the minor amount of fuel burned while still on the ground and at lower altitudes. Keep in mind the figure of roughly 100,800 tons of CO2 for one jet aircraft staying aloft in the upper atmosphere capturing heat for decades.
With the current and future expansion of GLOBAL airline routes and schedules, do you really think we have a chance at beating this Global Warming thing? I think not, however Gaia (Mother Earth) has already decided to move on the problem and her solution is to SHUT DOWN mankind. We have already had numerous warnings in the form of earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions, etc., so be warned. Remember the old expression that came out of the 1960’s; “It’s not smart to make Mother angry.” Peace.