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Earth

The Himalayas Are in Even Worse Shape Than We Thought (outsideonline.com) 245

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
New research shows just how much global warming is eating away at the glaciers on the world's highest peaks. From a report: A new study published this week in Science Advances offers one of the most comprehensive views of what's happening to the glaciers in the Himalayas -- and what it means for the people who live below them. The study, led by Joshua Maurer, a Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, analyzed 40 years worth of satellite images of around 650 glaciers across more than 1,200 miles of India, China, Nepal, and Bhutan. One of the largest ice loss studies to date (in both area and timespan), it not only confirms that climate change is the main contributing factor to glacial retreat in high-mountain Asia, but also reveals how fast rising temperatures are changing the face of the planet. According to the study, glaciers in the region have been losing the equivalent of more than a vertical foot and a half of ice each year since the turn of the millennia -- which is twice the rate of melting between 1975 to 2000.
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The Himalayas Are in Even Worse Shape Than We Thought More

The Himalayas Are in Even Worse Shape Than We Thought

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  • Do something (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    And yet nothing is being done or going to be done to actually reduce the problem, humans. Less humans = less problems

    Being allowed to freely birth new babies should not be a right.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by pgmrdlm ( 1642279 )
      Why is it that everyone that says the planet is over populated has never offered to lead by example. You know, terminate elderly retaliative that has a sickness that is only being prolonged through medical care. Offering to have their family sterilized or have medical procedures done for a permanent birth control.

      If you want to preach world population control, then you should lead by example and prove it.

      • Re:Do something (Score:4, Funny)

        by smooth wombat ( 796938 ) on Thursday June 20, 2019 @01:16PM (#58794560) Journal
        If you want to preach world population control, then you should lead by example and prove it.

        For some reason, every time I bring up the subject of dispersing Ebola throughout a city, I get a visit from men in black suits.
        • Lol, too funny.

        • For some reason, every time I bring up the subject of dispersing Ebola throughout a city, I get a visit from men in black suits.

          That's funny, because when I bring up the subject I get a visit from women wearing white suits. Do those men in black bring you a chocolate brownie with powered sugar sprinkled on top? That's what I get from those women, they tell me it will make me feel better.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jwhyche ( 6192 )

        If you want to preach world population control, then you should lead by example and prove it.

        I have a better ideal. Let's just not worry about it and let it take care of itself. We can just continue on with business as usual and see where it takes us. You see, at some point overpopulation will be corrected. The question is do we want to correct it, or let nature correct it?

        You're choice. Personally, I'm just as happy to sit back and see where this ride will take us.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by dryeo ( 100693 )

          Well you can cut the population by pushing freedom, freedom for girls to get educated and freedom for young women to acquire and use birth control. Or you can push ignorance and business as usual.
          I'm weird but would rather see more freedom.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

        If you want to preach world population control, then you should lead by example and prove it.

        https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/5/22/17376536/fertility-rate-united-states-births-women>Done.

        Got another snappy demand that'll blow up on you to make?

      • If you want to preach world population control, then you should lead by example and prove it.

        Clearly you haven't heard of The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement [vhemt.org].

        Also, many gays and lesbians aren't producing kids (yes, I realize some use surrogates/donors to have children), so that's reason enough to be accepting of their "lifestyle", for anyone who feels there are too many people on this planet.

      • terminate elderly retaliative

        LOL wait, did you accidentally tell us what you really think?

      • its like being a fundamentalist christian, pick and choose what you want to believe in. :) Not many want to lead by example, its everybody else that must in their eyes.
        There was a report recently that reckons population will peak and then decrease due to lower birth rates. Thats why most old world countries love immigrants as their indigenous populations are having low birth rates.
      • Actually, I know childless people who don't want to bring more kids into the world. Unfortunately, the standard dismissal of this suggestion of having less people on the planet is the jokey 'you first!' In the West we are unable to talk about population control because it has all sorts of authoritarian overtones that don't sit well with our selfish/individualistic mindsets.

    • And yet nothing is being done or going to be done to actually reduce the problem, humans. Less humans = less problems

      But wasn't there an article here just the other day that had studies that showed the birthrate for the globe is actually starting to fall?

      It said the trend is already reversing.

      So, hey, look at the bright side of this warming of the Himalayas......LESS people will likely die trying to climb Mt. Everest!!

    • And yet nothing is being done or going to be done to actually reduce the problem, humans. Less humans = less problems

      Being allowed to freely birth new babies should not be a right.

      In other words, if we become extinct, climate change would become just an academic problem or something similar to the earth's own evolution (from the Ice Age). Most of the world's population problems are a result of humans living longer. If we can get all the geezers worldwide (anyone 50+) hooked on fentanyl, that should solve this issue of climate change. Shouldn't it? Since fewer millenials these days are either marrying nor reproducing

  • This is great news! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Virtucon ( 127420 ) on Thursday June 20, 2019 @12:51PM (#58794338)

    That means all the Yuppie and YOLO crowd can now get up there and take selfies without having to trudge over thousands of feet of glacier ice! Shoot, now they can just pave a road right to the top and you can drive up there now.

    • Pressurized aerial tramway, you won't even need to get out. You can have a flexible rubber boot on the bottom, so you can reach your "feet" down to "touch" the top.

  • Earth (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Warms and cools all the time. It's the height of human arrogance and hubris to think we're the one responsible for the current warming trend.

  • India soon to be most populous (Score:5, Interesting)

    by edi_guy ( 2225738 ) on Thursday June 20, 2019 @01:18PM (#58794582)

    Not for nothing but this article popped up today about Chennai running out of water this season: https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/19... [cnn.com]

    And the UN is reporting that by 2027, India will have more people than China. Say what you want about China, but they defused their population time bomb and developed a third world economy into what will likely be the worlds largest economy around 2030.

    India needs some serious work otherwise the conjunction of worsening climate (for them) and population growth will be the makings of a real-life Soylent Green movie.

  • Don't glaciers wear down mountains? Doesn't this mean that Himalayas are In Great Shape?

    • The cycle of forming and melting creates much of the erosion, so accelerating the cycle doesn't reduce that. Much of the gravels and stuff under the glaciers will now move down the mountain, exposing new surfaces and preparing another cycle of erosion.

      What slows erosion is a more stable climate.

  • it not only confirms that climate change is the main contributing factor to glacial retreat in high-mountain Asia, but also reveals how fast rising temperatures are changing the face of the planet.

    I didn't read TFA or the study, just the top of this page. I'm not denying climate change... Just curious about this statement. What did the study use to confirm climate change is indeed the main contributing factor? It certainly confirms temperature changes and glacial retreat.... And common sense (for some) would lead to climate change being the likely culprit.... But if it confirms it, I'm assuming it would have to have some kind of measurement it used? (other than the glaciers being smaller)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dumuzi ( 1497471 )
      Here is the actual study: https://advances.sciencemag.or... [sciencemag.org] If I understand it correctly I think they took average daily temperatures of short time periods, looked at how those temperatures changed, and how the temperature changes correlated with the glacier melting. Changes in average daily temperatures over decades is one of the aspects of climate change. The actual paper uses words like "suggest" and "consistent with", which sounds wishy washy, but in science papers "consistent with" is pretty strong lan

  • Venusian Doom was promised by 2100 around 2009 or so. A couple of Carbon Cons later, and the collectivists promised Venusian Doom would be here by 2050.

    Venusian Doom should arrive by 2030 or so now according to the trendy socialist-politicians in the west. I have seen no pushback from the alleged sober climate scientists about such outlandish claims, so they must be true.

    So with just another couple papers from the climate scientists like this one (a couple drop every week), and Venusian Doom will have happe

    • "Venusian Doom"? Is that the next release from id Software?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dumuzi ( 1497471 )
      Millions of Penguins died this year due to lack of sea ice in Antarctica. Greenland is melting faster then ever. Permafrost that has been frozen for millennia is thawing faster then ever. Ocean acidification is eroding the shells of plankton right now. Half the great barrier reef died. There are ecosystems experiencing Venusian Doom right now. How many more predictions have to come true and how bad do they need to get before you stop attacking the scientists who, 40 years ago, told you this would happen. It

    • Venusian Doom was promised by 2100 around 2009 or so.
      No, it was not. Everyone with the slightest clue knows that Planet Earth has not enough CO2, or carbon, to ever be like Venus.

  • Nature favors entropy and we're here to serve.
  • 40 years worth of satellite images of around 650 glaciers across more than 1,200 miles of India, China, Nepal, and Bhutan. Let's see...40 years worth of images...and how many MILLIONS of years old is the Earth? That's a little over 3.3 solar cycles, which is NOTHING. It's been hotter...it's been colder. It's called CYCLES. But, people have the memory & attention span of a fly. They think something 10 years is a long time. 40 years LMAO! But a wink of an eye, in the history of this planet!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dumuzi ( 1497471 )
      You are correct. It is amazing that changes that normally take tens or hundreds of thousands of years are occurring in human lifetimes. In the wink of an eye there is more change happening then normally happens in eons. And the long time frame of the carbon cycle (think water cycle but with subduction and weathering being the drivers rather then melting and evaporation) will ensure that the impact of our eye blinks will dominate the climate, overriding all the natural cycles combined, for tens of thousands

  • So slow they have to make up the news.

    I saw this article today. -> https://realclimatescience.com... [realclimatescience.com]

    weather stations on the Yukon River, in the Arctic, have reported temperatures of more than 100 in the shade

    When was that news posted? 30th of April, 1937.

    You want to convince me this melting in the Himalayas is not fake news? Then tell me we should be building nuclear power plants in the USA to reduce the threat of global warming. That's it. I'll go along so long as it gets me nuclear power plants. If we can't have nuclear power plants then global warming must be less of a risk that nuclear power. That's

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dumuzi ( 1497471 )
      That article is an amazing mix of truth with cherry picked data and lies. Notice how they compare sea ice in June of 2019 with Sept of 1998? Of course there is less in Sept after a whole summer of the sun never setting. Here is a better representation of sea ice so you can see some of the lies in the article you cited: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] This one took me a few times of watching it to really understand. It also shows the change is sea ice thickness, debunking some of the claims in your citati

      • That article is an amazing mix of truth with cherry picked data and lies.

        Whatever. Don't care. All I really care about is making sure the USA continues to have inexpensive, reliable, and plentiful energy. Those that oppose nuclear power threaten that energy will continue to be inexpensive and plentiful. I'll play along with the global warming alarmists, just so long as it doesn't interfere with my standard of living. If the global warming alarmists agree to support nuclear power then we are just one small step from making global warming a solved problem.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dumuzi ( 1497471 )
          I've been reading some of your old posts and am impressed with your arguments. Though I would take um-bridge with your use of the term "alarmists", if I see and hear the fire alarm going off and I wake up my buddy and say "hey, we should do something, the alarm is going off" I guess that makes me an alarmist...? The alarms are indeed ringing, and if people don't notice them I guess we need to bang our drums and become an alarm ourselves, but the term still feels derogatory, even if I suppose it is somewhat

          • Why nuclear power?

            Because nuclear power takes less resources per energy returned. Has lower CO2 emissions than anything else we have. And is far safer than anything else we have.
            http://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/2... [blogspot.com]

            Problems of waste and fuel supply have been solved. Issues of civilian nuclear power being a pathway to nuclear weapons or dirty bombs are just fearmongering.
            http://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/2... [blogspot.com]

            The claims we can supply the world with energy from wind and solar power have been proven to be false by pe

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by dumuzi ( 1497471 )

              Thanks.
              I appreciate the links, they do a great job of addressing the concerns I mentioned. I teach high school physics (and I teach high school physics teachers). I always make a strong case for nuclear, but had begun to waiver in my own personal enthusiasm for it with the rising costs of nuclear and falling costs of solar and wind and batteries and other storage...
              But these sources have renewed my enthusiasm for nuclear!

              Now
              How do we build new nuclear reactors in the current political climate so we can save

              • How do we build new nuclear reactors in the current political climate so we can save the future global climate?

                I've been listening to Scott Adam's podcast and he's mentioned nuclear power several times in the last few weeks. He seems to think that the political climate is shifting in favor of nuclear power. The Green New Deal that so many politicians have stated support for just days, hours, or even minutes, ago just fell flat. Very few people take it seriously, and part of that is because it proposes abandoning nuclear power. Politicians are picking up real quick on the reality that without nuclear power the Am

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by dumuzi ( 1497471 )

                  No nuclear power has been built in the States in a while, but Canada has been building CANDU reactors in India, Pakistan, China... steadily since the late 1970's.
                  https://cna.ca/technology/ener... [cna.ca]
                  and rebuilding our own.

                  The most recent CANDU was just started in 2018 in Argentina.
                  The expertise is alive and well.
                  This reactor style is favoured for use in countries like India because it can be built in a way that uses up the plutonium, so they can't use their nuclear power plant to make enriched plutonium for nuc

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by dumuzi ( 1497471 )

                  You sig made me think...and though this is off the rails, so might be flame bait, I feel like we mostly have like minds so your sig intrigues me as I find it profoundly wrong.

                  I am free because my neighbors are not armed (at least not armed like your neighbors are).

                  Free from feeling like I need to arm myself to protect myself, free from an arms race where I need bigger guns then my neighbors... who need bigger guns then me..., free to send my kids to school with a tiny fraction of the risk your kids bear.

                  I t

      • We have ways to use the spent fuel now with next gen plants that will virtually eliminate our need to store waste
        I really wonddr where this myth comes from-
        So you want to tell me: you can eat endlessly. You never produce shit, because 'you burn' everything?
        So to where does the material, the matter, the atoms magically go?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dumuzi ( 1497471 )

          It seems your definition of myth is that: any knowledge you personally do not yet possess is a myth.
          So let me demythify this for you.

          A fast neutron reactor can utilize spent fuel and nuclear waste from a conventional nuclear reactor. The fast neutrons have a sufficient cross section to be captured by the mix of actinides that are in spent nuclear waste without needing to separate them ahead of time.
          http://www.world-nuclear.org/i... [world-nuclear.org]
          Once captured by the nuclei these neutrons can induce new fission reactions,

          • That does not make the waste go away.

            Idiot.

            You have to add new fissionable material and you have to remove something from the reactor, otherwise there is no room to add anything.

            So: where does the waste magically go?

            Hu?

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by dumuzi ( 1497471 )

              This is a new type of reactor.
              You take the waste from the old reactors, that right now we are just storing, and you use that waste in the new reactor. This is explained in the link I sourced.
              This means we no longer have to store the waste from the old reactors for thousands of years, instead what was waste becomes fuel for a new type of reactor.

              You seem really slow, so I will try to explain it slower in case that still doesn't make sense:
              We have nuclear reactors right now that make waste.
              That waste is dange

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