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Earth Science

Rising Temperatures Could Melt Most Himalayan Glaciers By 2100 (nationalgeographic.com) 351

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.
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Rising Temperatures Could Melt Most Himalayan Glaciers By 2100

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  • 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.

    A lot of Westerners wonder why India and China have such large populations. 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. These river valleys produce the agriculture that feeds and sustains those populations. If the Himalayas suffer, so do they.

    But, you'll still need to convince both governments that it's a problem.

    • 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 oce

      • by religionofpeas ( 4511805 ) on Tuesday February 05, 2019 @02:50AM (#58072038)

        So why should those governments be concerned, when they will be getting more water - not less?

        Because the glaciers act as a reservoir, releasing a steady stream throughout the year. Without glaciers, you get floods and droughts depending on season and weather patterns.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        That's great, but we are talking about the glaciers, not the cycle you just mention.
        The cycle he mentions would not exist without glaciers ... did you forgot your IQ hat this morning?

        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.
        Yes, as a flood ... sorry, are you that stupid? Half of your posts are quite ok, but this above is utter stupidity.

        Glaciers me

      • I am sensing

        Now provide some substance to convince anyone else.

    • by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Tuesday February 05, 2019 @12:36AM (#58071782)

      But, you'll still need to convince both governments that it's a problem.

      You don't need to convince China's government. China takes AGW seriously. They have more installed solar capacity than any other country, and much more under construction. They are building nukes, installing wind turbines, and investing in electric cars.

      India ... not so much. Democracies have difficulty dealing with long timeline problems.

      • Democracies are facing a much bigger problem these days. You can't just take your brightest and implement their ideas when you have to listen to constituents where half of them is below average IQ level.

        And they're usually also the loudest.

        • by Anonymous Coward

          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.

          • Funny, you seem to define things fitting a narrative rather than what they are describing. Did it ever occur to you that whoever is currently running with the "liberal" tag is not liberal? Just because I say I am something doesn't make me so. No matter how much I sexually identify as an attack helicopter, I shall never rain down death upon my enemies.

            Words used to have meanings. But when you redefine them, you strip them off it. Like "rape". Remember when this meant something akin to sexual assault? It's be

      • by gtall ( 79522 )

        And they are also building coal fired power plants and have no plans to get off petrol. If anything, they are doing everything they can to ensure their access to petrol.

        There's no China government in a sense. There is a bunch of guys measuring the size of their egos by how they can take over Taiwan and do unto it what they did unto Tibet and currently the Uighers. There are a lot of centrally owned companies mindlessly thrashing around in their economy and polluting the country. There is a state control app

    • South Asian descent person here. I can assure you the reasons Indians / Chinese / Pakistani's etc. have large populations have nothing to do with moist air flowing off the Indian Ocean or any other environmental factor.

      It's partly religion, partly lack of education.
      • by ghoul ( 157158 )

        India and China have always had larger populations than the rest of the world for the same reason Europe has a larger population than Antarctica even though Antarctica is larger. The carrying capacity of the land matters.

    • Monsoons depend on the North Indian Plains getting really hot in the summer, the hot air rising up and creating a vacumn and hence pulling in moisture laden air from the Indian ocean. with Global Warming the summer temperatures in North India will go up higher leading to a stronger monsoon. Also the moisture holding capacity of air goes up with temperature so more moisture will reach the northern plains and the Himalayas. Given these 2 facts I have a serious doubt on the report stating that the snowfall wil

  • ... but they won't do nuclear power.

    I find it difficult to believe that global warming is any real threat if the governments of the world cannot open a book just once and do some basic research on the solutions.

    What is the lowest CO2 energy source available today? Nuclear power.
    What is the safest energy source available today? Nuclear power.
    What energy source requires the least materials for the most energy produced? Nuclear power.

    So... Where's all the nuclear power plants being built to stop global warming?

    Any complaints on the cost of nuclear power is nonsense. If global warming is the threat they claim it to be then the governments of the world should not find the expense of nuclear power as any kind of hurdle. I've seen nuclear engineers talk on the costs of building a nuclear power plant any where in the world and the major cost that they run into is regulatory. So, fix the regulations. Do something like France did and decide on one design and spread out the regulatory costs among many of the same design.

    The global warming alarmists scream at everyone about how "the science is settled". Yep, I'll go with that, so long as they agree that the science is settled on nuclear power being part of the solution. If these people conclude that nuclear power is a greater threat to humanity than global warming then I conclude that global warming is such a minor threat that I have no reason to believe that I or anyone else need to change anything to avoid it. If there is no nuclear power in our future then I must conclude that there will be no global warming.

    Which is it? Do we get nuclear power? Or, is global warming just a hoax? If we can't have nuclear power then I call global warming all a big fat lie. It's just a means to an end to get people to do things that they normally would not agree to do. Well, people would not normally agree to nuclear power. We get nuclear power then the threat goes away and it cannot ever be used as a threat again. I guess they will just have to create another false threat to push people to agreeing to the disagreeable.

    • by ClickOnThis ( 137803 ) on Tuesday February 05, 2019 @12:13AM (#58071708) Journal

      You make many good points. But my one quibble with your post is that you use a false-choice fallacy.

      Yes, nuclear power is a compelling option for low-CO2 sources of energy. But there are others. Solar, wind, geothermal, tides, and so on. Long-term storage of nuclear waste is a problem that other technologies do not face.

      Let's keep an open mind. But open to other alternatives besides nuclear energy.

      • Long-term storage of nuclear waste is a problem that other technologies do not face.

        No, long term storage is not a problem. That is a problem that has been solved. What we have are people that fear the non-problem of nuclear waste over that of global warming. If it's the waste problem holding it up then they aren't trying hard enough.

        Let's keep an open mind. But open to other alternatives besides nuclear energy.

        Why? We have a long history of nuclear being inexpensive, reliable, safe, low carbon, and plentiful. Nearly a century of a history to prove this.

        You speak of needing an open mind but you've closed your mind to nuclear power. Hypocrite.

        Oh, and I made no call to abandon all but nuclear, only that nuclear must be part of the solution or we may be doomed to fail.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          No, long term storage is not a problem. That is a problem that has been solved.
          If you had solved it, why did you not publish it?
          You would have farmed in several Nobel prices and would be on top of that: the richest man on the planet. Perhaps the richest and most important man in history for the next few hundred years.

          Sorry, you are an idiot.

        • by Uberbah ( 647458 )

          Why? We have a long history of nuclear being inexpensive, reliable, safe, low carbon, and plentiful. Nearly a century of a history to prove this.

          Even if that statement wasn't total bullshit on its face, Fukishima alone would wipe out your entire century of supposed safety and cost savings.

        • Nuclear waste storage has been solved? Did I miss the memo?

          Might you please inform me of the solution?

        • by hey! ( 33014 )

          Well, it'd be more correct to say that there is no long-term nuclear disposal problem for most of us, because it's relatively simple to dispose of nuclear wastes in such a way that it won't pose problems for decades with near perfect confidence.

          While I do think nuclear has a place in slowing the pace of climate change, we need to consider the impact on proliferation of nuclear being the only possible option for having a modern industrial economy. If we were to wave a wand and replace all the fossil fuel pl

        • No, long term storage is not a problem.

          Nuclear absolutely needs to be part of the solution but denying that waste storage is a problem (even if it's only a political problem) is stupid.

          A far larger problem is the not-at-all-passive design of conventional reactors' cooling systems: coolant reservoirs located uphill? Gravity's all well and good until the earthquake damages the pipes and you lose pressure...

      • Yes, nuclear power is a compelling option for low-CO2 sources of energy. But there are others. Solar, wind, geothermal, tides, and so on.

        Nuclear is the only power source that can replace all CO2 generating electrical sources right now. Thus, if you were serious about getting rid of emissions, you'd immediately start switching to nuclear (solar and wind are fine for part of the electrical load).

        If you were serious about getting rid of emissions, you'd also mandate electric (or non-combustion engine) cars, along with subsidies for people who couldn't afford them. If this is something serious enough that it must happen today.

        But it's not t

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Uberbah ( 647458 )

          Nuclear is the only power source that can replace all CO2 generating electrical sources right now.

          Laughably false. Wind and solar passed coal in cost effectiveness years ago, and that was with allowing coal to externalize its environmental costs.

          Thus, if you were serious about getting rid of emissions, you'd immediately start switching to nuclear

          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

          • by fatwilbur ( 1098563 ) on Tuesday February 05, 2019 @12:22PM (#58073640)
            "Wind and solar passed coal in cost effectiveness" Why do I hear this being said all the time, all those studies showing current wind/solar $/kWh as being the cheapest form available, yet this clearly does not align with reality? We do not live in a dictatorship, if it was possible to build a solar farm and erect a bunch of windmills and undercut the local electric utility, you'd see this wholesale and fast across North America.

            No, not the case at all.. in every jurisdiction planning a move to greater renewables, the focus is on trying to get the populace to accept greater electricity costs. This is also why it's so hard, especially in a democracy. Sick of hearing this "wind/solar are most cost effective" anyway - if it's better overall make that argument, but don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining.
          • Solar can only provide intermittent electricity, nuclear can provide it around the clock. There is no place that solar (or wind) supplies 100% of the electricity.
        • Nuclear is the only power source that can replace all CO2 generating electrical sources right now.
          Only if you have fat power lines going to the mines where fuel is mined. Have all the mining equipment and transportation electrified ... etc. p.p.

          But that story would be true for any electricity generation "concept". Make bio gas, only use gas for your farming and working equipment ...

      • by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 ) on Tuesday February 05, 2019 @02:50AM (#58072036) Journal
        Solar, wind, geothermal, tides, and so on. Long-term storage of nuclear waste is a problem that other technologies do not face.
        Heard all this before. The former are not end-all be-all solutions, they're more supplemental, and producing the hardware for them is not carbon-neutral or carbon-negative, either; the latter does not have to be a deal-breaker, we can I'm sure come up with ways to deal with waste products that does not pose a risk. Hell, drop it into the Marianas Trench and allow the Earth to reabsorb the stuff via subduction. Or maybe we find a way to recycle nuclear waste back into useful fuel -- or even a way to neutralize it entirely. I flatly reject anyone who puts forth the notion that physics has 'discovered all there is to discover' (and yes someone has said that in the past, and they weren't kidding). Sticking our heads in the sand over nuclear just isn't going to cut it anymore though.
        • by Uberbah ( 647458 )

          The former are not end-all be-all solutions, they're more supplemental

          Except you'll need a "supplemental" nuclear power plant for your grid, to step in when one of your other nuclear power plant goes down for weeks (or longer) at a time for regular maintenance.

          and producing the hardware for them is not carbon-neutral or carbon-negative, either

          Yes, concrete pads for wind towers use concrete, which produces CO2 while baking it. What do you think cooling towers and other nuclear power plant buildings are made

          • Yeah sure and your mind is already made up so what does that make you? I reversed course on nuclear a while back. Meanwhile you're not even willing to think about it. All your 'renewables' are not going to be enough but you don't want to hear that either, do you? You'd probably say 'no' to fusion power, too, just because it's still a form of nuclear power. With your 'plan' for the Earth, a die-back of our species is the only way we'll survive -- but consider this: how much CO2 is going to get dumped into th
        • Producing nuclear fuel, mining, refining, transportation, is not CO2 neutral or negative either.
          A nuclear power plant produces 30% of the CO2 a coal plant does, because of all the things mentioned above.

          • by Ormy ( 1430821 )
            Citation for your 30% figure please. Mining and transportation are also necessary for coal but I bet they aren't included in typical coal-plant CO2 figures either.
            • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

              by Freischutz ( 4776131 )

              Citation for your 30% figure please. Mining and transportation are also necessary for coal but I bet they aren't included in typical coal-plant CO2 figures either.

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

              Coal 1050 g co2/kWh
              Solar 32 g co2/kWh
              Wind 10 g co2/kWh

              Most other studies are in the same ballpark, i.e two orders of magnitude. Wind power has around 1% of the life cycle carbon footprint of coal burning and solar 3%. The really funny part here is the idea hat the CO2 footprint involved in mining a metric ton of coal is going to be a significant part of the life-cycle greenhouse emissions caused by burning that ton of coal, coal is pretty much pure carbon. The weight

      • by hey! ( 33014 )

        There's also the unspoken assumption that we must have a single, simple basket to put all our eggs in. The problem with putting all your eggs in one basket is you run into rising marginal environmental costs as you rapidly scale one thing, like nuclear power, in some kind of crash program. If we did that with nuclear today, we'd face a huge decommissioning problem in fifty years as a crisis rather than a gradually developing problem.

        One of the big keys is electrifying more stuff, because electricity isn't

      • The industrial side products of Solar panel manufacturing are just as nasty as nuclear waste. The difference is panel manufacture can be done in third world countries whereas nuclear plants need to be int he consuming countries. The US has reduced its CO2 demand by not doing the manufacturing where the consuming happens and not by actual less wasteful consumption. Solar is more of the same. Moving the problem elsewhere.

      • "Let's keep an open mind. But open to other alternatives besides nuclear energy."
        None that are proven to be commercially viable without massive subsidies.

        Let's talk in 10 years when all these solar panels put up in the Obama years now need replacement.

    • ... but they won't do nuclear power.

      There are more than 150 nuclear reactors under construction or on order, with a total estimated power production of 160GW.

      The future of nuclear is dim in America, the EU, and Japan. The rest of the world is more bullish.

      Plans for new nukes [world-nuclear.org]

      • And most of them under building has been in that state for decades. And no construction is taking place.

        The construction is in a hiatus.

        For many the hiatus will be eternal. The only reason its not been stopped is that the cost of getting a new permit if it ever becomes profitable to build nuclear power again.

        The reason: Wind and sun power is cheaper to build and maintain.

    • You'd be more credible if you didn't pose it as an either-or proposition. People have a right to be afraid of nuclear power. No matter how much you justify how safe we can do it now and the advantages, there's still the stain of disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima. Then there's the global security issues of weapon's grade waste.

      Personally, I'm FOR the expansion of nuclear power. But regulations exist because these same companies have fucked up so disastrously.

    • by ljw1004 ( 764174 )

      So, fix the regulations. Do something like France did and decide on one design and spread out the regulatory costs among many of the same design.

      The regulations amount to basically just "pay for the eventual cleanup costs and to reduce the risk of severe accident". The free market has evaluated the costs to adhere to these regulations (i.e. to pay for cleanup costs and defray risk) and found them to be non cost effective compared to solar, heck even to wind.

      I think your choice boils down to "socialism to pay for the risks".

    • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      It feels like it is getting much closer. All it needs is low energy yield long fuel life reactors, for more safe and reliable and stable energy production, many reactors lasting a long time, rather than a few running on the edge of collapse.

      Though that long term threat, is not as important right now as the short term threat, that being of course the Great Planetary Fart. When hundreds of thousands of years of methane is released because it will become the warmest it has been for quite some time and there i

    • I'm having a problem with you conflating global warming and nuclear power the way you're doing, but I do agree -- even as a Democrat -- that we need to dispell the Boogeyman we've created surrounding nuclear power and avail ourselves of it before it's too late. It's possible to design and build inherently safer reactors, ones that won't suffer the pitfalls of even the most current design in use, but there first needs to be enough belief in the need for it to get the funding to first design them, then start
    • What is the lowest CO2 energy source available today? Nuclear power.
      No it isn't.

      The absolut lowest is: reduce usage, increase efficiency
      And then comes everything that is not bound to mining and transportation, e.g. Biomass, Geothermal and Solar followed by Wind.

      You are just an idiot, but nice you point your nuclear love out all the time ...

      And you are uninformed, China is building lots of nuclear power plants. Stupid ass.

    • .. but they won't do nuclear power.

      Some compelling reasons in your post, but I would venture the most likely answer is actually because nuclear power wouldn't give them returns during their time in office and for almost every politician out there, gains for society achieved AFTER they leave office are of no consequence to them

    • by Ormy ( 1430821 )

      Apart from your hyperbolic "Which is it? Do we get nuclear power? Or, is global warming just a hoax?" I agree with you.

      If you were being serious with the above quote, the answer is obvious. Global warming is real, it is not a hoax. We will not get new nuclear plants because the people in charge of various nations with nuclear capability are not scientists or engineers, they are businessmen and bureaucrats who have bought into the anti-nuclear FUD (just like most of the ACs replying to your comment).

    • I guess you are just ignoring nuclear waste?

      C02 is all gone from the atmosphere in roughly 1000 years. Nuclear waste on the otherhand sticks around for 100,000 years or more.

      So you are doing exactly what people who had high hopes for oil are doing, ignoring the waste and externalities. I am not prepared to saddle the next 1000 generations with a waste problem because people don't like the very real solution of solar + hydro + wind + batteries.

      It is most ironic, poeple who claim nuclear will solve all our pr

  • IPCC AR4 said the glaciers would be gone by 2035; now it's just 1/3rd of them gone by 2100. Hurray - forward progress!
  • by Joe Branya ( 777172 ) on Tuesday February 05, 2019 @08:46AM (#58072670)

    This is nonsense and Slashdot should get its act together.

    Why are they publishing a public relations piece? I believe in global warming. It has affected glaciers and will continue to do so, with consequences that are both good and bad. But this supposed scientific report... let's start with "Who are they and where is this published?"

    Who are they? We don't know. All we have is the following: "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. " This appears to be the usual self-appointed group of experts. Again, they may be right or wrong- or more likely giving us the "This is horrible" bad news without the offsetting good news (more arable land, etc). Further tracking reveals all the four named authors are all from something called the "International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) Kathmandu Nepal" And who funds this? Good luck...

    Where was it published? You follow the links in the article and they all lead to springer.com which says they are "Providing researchers with access to millions of scientific documents from journals, books, series, protocols, reference works and proceedings."

    NO! I WANT TO KNOW WHERE IT WAS PUBLISHED. IS THIS A PEER REVIEWED JOURNAL ARTICLE OR NOT? The answer appears to be "not" . At https://link.springer.com/book... [springer.com] we finally get the following: "This open access volume is the first comprehensive assessment of the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region...". This is the usual non-profit funded PR piece trying to affect public opinion and through it public policy. I may agree with the conclusions or I may not but don't kid yourself, this is propaganda by one side of a policy debate and nothing more.

    So thirty minutes of digging on my part yields "This is not science it is partisan BS"

    Now back to the original question; Why is Slashdot publishing this? Are the Slashdot moderators and editors who select what appears here incompetent or are they so wound up in the left/liberal, phony moral outrage worldview that all an article has to do is agree with their moral posture to get into Slashdot?

    Want to stop global warming? Well first stop flying around the world in jet planes, the biggest per-mile contributor to upper atmosphere pollution. Come on outraged snowflakes, forget the snowboarding trip to Colorado and do your part to save the planet. You are, after all, among the world's biggest polluters of the upper atmosphere. As for me, even knowing, I'll still head for Europe this summer. Dear snowflakes let me make it clear; I'm not claiming to be more moral, more pure than you, just less twitishly pompous.

    And dear Slashdot moderators and editors; now could we get back to real news about technology for a change?

    • by skam240 ( 789197 )

      You've ruined your solid detective work with an overly partisan rant. Why does a claim that those glaciers will melt have to be partisan? Why does their claim not being properly peer reviewed mean horrible leftist conspiracy?

      Then your post proceeds to go even more down hill from here.

      "Want to stop global warming? Well first stop flying around the world in jet planes, the biggest per-mile contributor to upper atmosphere pollution."

      Planes contribute to a total of 3% of US green house gas emissions and 12% per

  • but...I at least skimmed it. They state that the temperature in the Himalayas has risen "by nearly two degrees Fahrenheit since the start of the 20th century". So that's about 1 degree C in 120 years. Wow...that's...not very much. Given that the earth was/is still warming up after the "little ice age" of the 18th century, this is nothing more than natural warming.

    Even with reduced glaciers, snow will still accumulate in the Winter and melt over the Summer. It's not like the rivers are going to dry up, altho

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