From McGill University , hmmm, where have we heard this water supply threat from receding mountain glaciers before? Children just aren’t going to know what glaciers are.
Glacial tap is open but the water will run dry
Retreating glaciers threaten water supplies
Glaciers are retreating at an unexpectedly fast rate according to research done in Peru’s Cordillera Blanca by McGill doctoral student Michel Baraer. They are currently shrinking by about one per cent a year, and that percentage is increasing steadily, according to his calculations.
But despite this accelerated glacial shrinking, for the first time, the volume of water draining from the glacier into the Rio Santa in Northern Peru has started to decrease significantly. Baraer, and collaborators Prof. Bryan Mark, at the Ohio State University, and Prof. Jeffrey McKenzie, at McGill, calculate that water levels during the dry season could decrease by as much as 30 per cent lower than they are currently. “When a glacier starts to retreat, at some point you reach a plateau and from this point onwards, you have a decrease in the discharge of melt water from the glacier,” explained Baraer.
“Where scientists once believed that they had 10 to 20 years to adapt to reduced runoff, that time is now up,” said Baraer. “For almost all the watersheds we have studied, we have good evidence that we have passed peak water.” This means that the millions of people in the region who depend on the water for electricity, agriculture and drinking water could soon face serious problems because of reduced water supplies.
###
Looks like we are dealing with another Lonnie Thompson clone. Here’s the handbill for a lecture on the topic, it seems this press release is a bit dated. From his Facebook page, it seems the dastardly connection to big oil is alive and well.
It’s so bad there, locals have taken to whitewashing the Andes:
Inhabitat reports:
Eduardo Gold is one of 26 people around the world to win the World Bank’s “100 Ideas to Save the Planet” contest and his dream is to bring back Peru’s glaciers from the effects of global warming. Mr. Gold is not a scientist — though some might think he’s a genius, others that he’s got a couple of screws loose — but he’s using the cash prize from the contest to whitewash three mountains just west of Ayacucho, Peru in hopes of bringing back melted glaciers that once hung there, high above the village of Licapa. In the past two weeks he and his team of four men have used a mixture of lime, egg whites and water to turn the Chalon Sombrero peak white. They’ve successfully whitewashed two hectares in the past two weeks and they’ve only got 68 more to go.
The USGS reports that it is a volatile area, so volatile in fact that large engineering projects have been put in place to mitigate aluviónes (glacial floods). Wikipedia has this entry:
During the dry season from June to November, the Santa River provides only a little water for irrigation, drinking water and hydroelectric power. A couple of water reservoirs have been established to control the fluctuation of the river. Upstream of the hydroelectric power plant of Huallanca, the Río Santa watershed covers an area of 4,900 km², downstream another 7,300 km².
I wonder how much effect these might have had? No mention in the McGill press release. Here’s USGS take on the area From Feb 1999. There’s no mention of “climate change”.
Glacier Hazards
Since 1702, more than 22 catastrophic events have resulted from ice avalanches that have caused outburst floods from glacier lakes. The floods, known in Perú as aluviónes, come with little or no warning and are composed of liquid mud that generally transports large rock boulders and blocks of ice. The floods have destroyed a number of towns, and many lives have been lost (table 4). One of the hardest hit areas has been the Río Santa valley in northern Perú (fig. 11). Of these catastrophes, the most serious were the aluviónes that destroyed part of the city of Huaraz in 1725 and 1941, as well as the aluvión that resulted from the failure of Lago Jancarurish in 1950. In addition, two destructive, high-speed avalanches from the summit area of Huascarán Norte (6,655 m asl) in 1962 and 1970 destroyed several villages and caused the deaths of more than 25,000 inhabitants. Reports of these catastrophic glacier-related events include those by Morales Arnao, B., (1966, 1971), Chiglino (1950, 1971), Lliboutry (1975), Plafker and Ericksen (1978), and Hofmann and others (1983). Figures 6 and 12 give some idea of the effect of the Huascarán avalanches. Figure 13 shows the 1951 flood from Lago Artesoncocha into Lago Parón.
Figure 11.–The locations of the many natural disasters, glaciological in origin, that have caused deaths or property damage in the Río Santa valley of Perú since 1702. See table 4 for additional information.
Table 4.–Natural disasters in Perú that were glaciological in origin (see fig. 11)
| No. | Cordillera | Area | Description | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Blanca | Huaraz | Floods destroyed part of the city of Huaraz. | 4 March 1702 |
| 2 | Blanca | Huaraz | Earthquake, ice avalanche, and floods damaged the city of Huaraz. Approximately 1,500 people were reported missing; only 300 people were left alive. | 6 January 1725 |
| 3 | Blanca | Yungay | Avalanche from Nevados Huandoy. Floods destroyed the town of Ancash, and 1,500 people were reported to have perished. At the same time, an earthquake also took place. | 6 January 1725 |
| 4 | Blanca | Huaraz | Slides and floods affected the village of Monterrey, destroying houses and fields; 11 people missing. | 10 February 1869 |
| 5 | Blanca | Huaraz | Flood in the town of Macashca. Many people were reported to have died. Rajucolla levee was broken. | 24 June 1883 |
| 6 | Blanca | Yungay | Ice avalanche from Huascarán impacted Shacsha and Ranrahirca. | 22 January 1917 |
| 7 | Huayhuash | Bolognesi | Aluvión from Lago Solteracocha in the Pacllón basin. | 14 March 1932 |
| 8 | Blanca | Carhuaz | Aluvión from Lago Arteza (Pacliashcocha) into the Quebrada Ulta (Río Buin) near Carhuaz (Kinzl, 1940). | 20 January 1938 |
| 9 | Blanca | Pallasca | Aluvión from Lago Magistral affected the town of Conchucos. | 1938 |
| 10 | Huayhuash | Bolognesi | Aluvión from Lago Suerococha impacted Río Pativilca causing damage to agricultural fields and town of Sarapo. | 20 April 1941 |
| 11 | Blanca | Huaraz | Aluvión from Lago Palcacocha damaged the city of Huaraz. Approximately 5,000
people died. The new part of the city was destroyed. |
13 December 1941 |
| 12 | Blanca | Huari | Aluvión from Lagos Ayhuinaraju and Carhuacocha caused by an ice avalanche from the Huantsan peak damaged the town of Chavín. Many people died. | 17 January 1945 |
| 13 | Blanca | Huaylas | Aluvión from Lago Jancarurish above the Los Cedros drainage basin. Destruction of the Central Hidroeléctrica del Cañón del Pato, the highway, and part of the railway from Chimbote to Huallanca. | 20 October 1950 |
| 14 | Blanca | Huaylas | Aluvión from Lago Artesoncocha into Lago Parón (two events). | 16 June and 28 October 1951 |
| 15 | Blanca | Huaraz | Aluvión from Lago Milluacochan into the Quebrada Ishinca drainage basin. | 6 November 1952 |
| 16 | Blanca | Huaraz | Slides and flood from Lago Tullparaju affected Huaraz city. | 8 December 1959 |
| 17 | Blanca | Yungay | Avalanches and aluviónes from Huascarán Norte. About 4,000 people died; 9 towns were destroyed, one of which was Ranrahirca (Dollfus and Peñaherrera del Aguila, 1962; Morales Arnao, 1962). | 10 January 1962 |
| 18 | Blanca | Huari | Ice avalanche from Nevado San Juan above Lago Tumarina (Quebrada Carhuascancha, Huantar District); 10 people died in Chavín. | 19 December 1965 |
| 19 | Blanca | Yungay | Rock and ice avalanche from Huascarán Norte severely affected the city of Yungay. Approximately 23,000 people died. The same day another avalanche took place between Lagunas Llanganuco. | 31 May 1970 |
| 20 | Blanca | Huaraz | Small avalanche from Tocllaraju near Paltay into Lago Milluacocha. | 31 August 1982 |
| 21 | Blanca | Yungay | Small ice avalanche from Huascarán Norte reached the Ranrahirca fan. | 16 December 1987 |
| 22 | Blanca | Yungay | Small ice avalanche from Huascarán Norte reached the Río Santa. | 20 January 1989 |
Figure 12.–Sketch map and profile of the area affected by the 1962 and 1970 aluviónes from Huascarán Norte in the Cordillera Blanca (modified from Plafker and Ericksen, 1978). See also figure 6.
Figure 13.–Flood from Lago Artesoncocha (1951) into Lago Parón in the Cordillera Blanca near Caraz.
These catastrophes influenced the Government of Perú to establish an Oficina de Obras Seguridad (Security Works Office) to prevent or mitigate avalanches and floods from glacial lakes. Several glacial lakes have been drained by using two traditional methods, the first by excavating a channel through the morainic dam and the second by building tunnels through the moraine. Where the first method is employed, a channel through the top of the moraine is gradually and carefully excavated so that the water behind the dam is allowed to drain safely through the channel and into the stream below. When the water is drained to the desired level, a permanent concrete drainage pipe is constructed within the moraine. Next, the moraine is rebuilt to its original level by using compacted earth, which is covered in turn by rock and concrete. The permanent outlet provides drainage and a normally low water level, whereas the dam provides protection in case of avalanches and floods. The second method digs or drills tunnels through the morainic dams or surrounding rock; the tunnels are left open to prevent the glacier lakes from forming in the future. In both methods, great care must be taken to prevent uncontrolled drainage of the lake because of the possibility of catastrophic flooding. Construction is difficult because most sites are situated at elevations of 4,000 m or higher.
The first method was used successfully on Lago Llaca and Lago Shallap above Huaraz and on Lago Hualcacocha above Carhuaz (figs. 3, 14). The second method was used on the moraines of Lago Tullparaju above Huaraz and Lago Safuna, northwest of Nevados Pucahirca, and in the drilling of the Parón Tunnel above Caraz through granitic rock 50 m below the water surface, as well as the tunnels on 513 lakes above Carhuaz (fig. 3).
After more than 30 years of continuous work, the program appears to be successful because no destructive floods resulting from the breakout of glacial lakes have occurred in the Cordillera Blanca since 1972.
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Don’t give a dam….
The first world stores precipitation behind dams and reservoirs, to be trickled out slowly for agriculture and irrigation. The form of precipitation is irrelevant, it all eventually gets stored if it falls upstream. Rain in lieu of snow is in reality only bad for the skiers. California does not need glaciers or snow to have irrigation water all year long.
The third world needs to get with the program and build a few big dams.
In any case, don’t give ’em a dam, let ’em build it themselves.
Dam it.!
“we have passed peak water” :)))))
Ron Manley says:
Runoff = Precipitation – Evaporation – Increase_in_storage.
‘Storage’ can be in soils, aquifers, snow, glaciers, etc.
If glaciers are stable, they contribute nothing to flow: if increasing to a reduction in flow: if shrinking to an increase in flow.
+++++++++
You are 100% correct. Thanks for saving me the trouble to write. The problem is that Climate Math is ‘different’. You start by putting the answer on the right side of the Equals sign then add elements and factors on the left, inserting various + – / * as needed or necessary to get the answer on the right.
You will recall the famous, “He used the wrong method but got the right answer anyway.” The only way that can be defended is to use Climate Math where the answer (CO2=Bad!) is the inevitable consequence.
Having read of the extraordinary antics of Enron in the promotion of the CAGW meme and their funding of every ‘green’ yahoo they could manipulate into promoting their ghastly capitalist/monopolist agenda I now realise that Enron Math is the same as Climate Math and in fact Enron may have invented the concept because the answer is always going up. Read on:
+++++++++
TRADITIONAL ECONOMICS
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies and the economy grows.
You retire on the income but continue making a popular specialty yogurt with local berries to keep you occupied.
INDIAN ECONOMICS
You have two cows.
You worship them.
PAKISTAN ECONOMICS
You don’t have any cows.
You claim all Indian cows belong to you.
You ask the US for financial aid, China for military aid, British for warplanes, Italy for machines, Germany for technology, French for submarines, Switzerland for loans, Russia for drugs and Japan for equipment. You buy cows with all this then claim exploitation by the world.
AMERICAN ECONOMICS
You have two cows.
You sell one and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. You profess surprise when the cow drops dead. You put the blame on some nation with cows & naturally that nation will be a danger to mankind.
You start a war to save the world and grab the cows to pay for the weapons use and start a Cow Exchange trading milk futures.
FRENCH ECONOMICS
You have two cows.
You go on strike because you want three cows.
GERMAN ECONOMICS
You have two cows.
You reengineer them so that they live for 100 years, eat once a month and milk themselves. The milk is bland and sold as ‘vegetarian milk’.
BRITISH ECONOMICS
You have two cows.
They are both mad cows.
ITALIAN ECONOMICS
You have two cows.
You don’t know where they are.
You break for lunch.
SWISS ECONOMICS
You have 5000 cows, none of which belong to you.
You charge others for storing them.
JAPANESE ECONOMICS
You have two cows.
You redesign them so that they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. You then create cute cartoon cow images called Cowkimon and market them worldwide.
RUSSIAN ECONOMICS
you have two cows.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
You count them again and learn you have 17 cows.
You give up counting and open another bottle of vodka.
CHINESE ECONOMICS
You have two cows.
You have 300 people milking them.
You claim full employment, high bovine productivity and arrest anyone reporting any actual numbers.
IRANIAN ECONOMICS
You have two cows.
You don’t know economics.
You choose one of them as the leader of your country and the other one as the president. That is not the same position, in Iran.
ENRON/CLIMATE-SCARE ECONOMICS
You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows applying a new clause in the Renewable Energy Act (cows are obviously self-renewing or they wouldn’t be producing milk).
The milk rights of the six cows (but not the milking rights) are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island company secretly owned by your CFO who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company.
The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with a preferential option on six more.
Now do you see why a company with $62 billion in assets declared bankruptcy?
Back when I was a solar water-heater manufacturer
we would paint the roofs white so the glare would help heat the water.
Even the most expensive, specialized roof paint
was yellowed and dull after two years of solar UV.
I expect that stuff they’re using will UV-degrade quite fast
and wash off in the next rain. Talk about futility.
Crispen,
Love the updated Cow Economics. Nice work.
“…we have good evidence that we have passed peak water”.
——————————
And have passed greenhouse gas.
dtbronzich
Before magicians was primitive man,
whose science was in fact these two principles.
If it looks like it crawls it’s probably alive,
so similarity is an obvious guide to reality, not magic.
Fear of contagion and rituals for preventing it
are quite rational in a Stone-Age world rife with a plethora
of deadly viruses, bacteria, and protists,
against which no dilution is 100% effective.
And there’s also the microscopic eggs of parasites.
Contagion superstitions evolved precisely against those enemies.
The “This is Spinal Tap” really is more comical than I think was originally intended…
As Spinal Tap’s popularity waned, they found themselves opening for Puppet Show. (the IPCC?)
….And like An Inconvenient Truth, This is Spinal Tap was also a fake documentary!
Want some more? Al Gore and Spinal Tap’s producer Rob Reiner are buddies.
http://x17video.com/celebrity_video/rob_reiner/al_gore_and_rob_reiner_have_di.php
Glaciers act as buffers – if the glacier keeps its size, it releases amount of water equal to precipitation over its area. By trying to restore the glacier, they’re just trying to decrease amount of water in the river for a number of years to allow the glacier to grow up again using that water. The question is whether that’s really what they want to achieve. And even if the glacier completely melts, the river will still bring amount of water equal to precipitation. So there is the question what they should really be concerned about – the glacier because they like it a lot, or the amount of water in the river because they need it?
Thanks Crispin, between you and Sam Kinison I laughed so hard I had a coughing fit and had to use some of my precious CFC inhaler.
Whenever I read “research” like Baraer’s, I have to question how much real background research was done first. Do these people even do any? Unless the history of the area being studied is known, and I mean really known, how can anyone come to any conclusion about what is happening now? This ebb and flow could run in cycles, over which the only control man has is to move away when the water decreases, and move back when it increases. Populations have been reacting to such “climate change” by doing just that for as long as man has been on this planet.
Does not rain but snow falls over there, if and when rains over there then snow is finished.
Snow is not added regularly over there as it used to be in old days. snow melting is not due to global warming, it has never been warm enough on the glacial regions, they are still in sub–zeros
temperature which is much much colder than required temp to melt them. glacial pressure is
thawing the ice that is in contact with the rock below, that is how rivers originate.
For details please click on my name.
Yeah, the “of course”es and “obviously”es sorta get into a mental car crash right off the bat, don’t they?
Apparently the general public is beginning to mistrust ‘scientists’. Some of that mistrust may have have its origins in religious beliefs and some may arise from the constant bombardment received from popular media in terms of “half a glass of wine increases your chances of (fill in your favourite bugbear)”. Personally, I have no problem with science until I see the abbreviations ‘Prof’ or ‘Dr’ in the context of climate research.
@Jay
I have an even longer version explaining economics as viewed by other groups but that one is long enough. Yes, people move as is proven by the uncovering of ancient villages as the glaciers in the Alps recede. Some are 800 years old, and if the retreat continues, 1000 year old habitation sites will be exposed. Kind of like the Greenland settlements.
5,300 year old frozen natural mummy. Found in September 1991 in a melting glacier. It had to be at least as warm where he was found 5,300 years ago.
No, it really doesn’t have to have been as warm 5,300 years ago. Similarly, it doesn’t really have to be warmer now than it was then.
“But despite this accelerated glacial shrinking, for the first time, the volume of water draining from the glacier into the Rio Santa in Northern Peru has started to decrease significantly.”
How can the volume of water draining from a glacier “decrease” at the same time that the glacier is melting at a steadily “increasing” rate. Where is the extra water going? Maybe the missing water is hiding with the missing heat. I mean, if the missing heat can bypass the atmosphere and the ocean surface to hide in the deep oceans, why can’t water from melting glaciers bypass rivers and streams and go directly into the deep oceans, too?
Good catch.
Either the melt is decreasing, or the glacier has little to do with the flow of the Rio Santo.
Yes, it really does. Considering his clothing and location, certainly. He was not about to climb and traverse the glacier now blocking the pass. The whole thing was open. So it was warmer, much warmer.
It would seem that Kilimanjaro is renewing its glaciers. Snow cover has shown an increase in the latest pictures. So increased snow falls.
Umm, if the glaciers are melting and the people below them are dependent on meltwater, then presumably their retreat is a natural consequence of their melting, which has presumably been going on for a long time?
I don’t recall any reports along the lines of “Global warming improves post-war irrigation – saves millions of lives”.
I think it is rather more realistic to say that mountains cause heavy precipitation which results in rivers and people live on the rivers. You don’t need glaciers – if you are relying on glaciers net melting then you are relying on something inherently likely to pass over time.
The longest river in Britain is the Severn. It starts in the Cambrian mountains of Wales and flows all year round – but there is no glacier at the top. The mountains simply ensure that incoming weather systems are forced higher over the mountains causing them to dispense with the rain contained within them.
DocWat says:
December 20, 2011 at 12:03 pm
——————————————————–
DocWat, that is very impressive in that the wind-generated electricity will travel along high voltage lines that cost local taxpayers nothing. I’m resisting calling this project the exception that proves the rule but my hat goes off to your community. Congratulations.
My favorite line from the article is:
“Electricity that runs through the Grain Belt Express won’t be sold in Kansas, and there will be no cost to taxpayers or electric ratepayers, the company said, nor is it getting any incentives from the state.”
One thing that is a bit disconcerting (and seems to be a growing problem in America) is that the permitting process will delay construction to about 2017. Ouch.
Brian H says:
December 21, 2011 at 1:24 am
Yes, it really does. Considering his clothing and location, certainly. He was not about to climb and traverse the glacier now blocking the pass. The whole thing was open. So it was warmer, much warmer.
—————
The referenced article says the had a coat and maybe snowshoes.
It would be interesting to know what percentage of readers recognized teh pun in the title from its similarity to “This is Spinal Tap”.
Viv Savage line in the movie This is Spinal Tap: “Quite exciting, this computer magic!”
LOL
Brian H says:
Yes, it really does. Considering his clothing and location, certainly. He was not about to climb and traverse the glacier now blocking the pass. The whole thing was open. So it was warmer, much warmer.
You’re making a lot of assumptions that you are not adequately identifying and evaluating. This is affecting the validity of your conclusions.
First, we dont know that the “whole thing was open” and don’t have firm reason to believe that it was. Otzi’s body was found by people walking around …
Second, whether it was open then or not does not conclusively determine that it was warmer then than now. Or, as some warmists would like to argue, that it was cooler then than now.
Glaciers take time to form, and time to disappear. They form and disappear for reasons not limitied to temperature. Insofar as formation and disappearance are related to temperature, they act on absolute temperature points, not relative temps. These facts confound attempts to determine the relative temperature between two points in time at some location, based simply on the presence or absence of a glacier at that location at those discreet times.
We hear this crap from uneducated warmists all the time. They point to a piece of driftwood recently uncovered from beneath a glacier and proclaim “This means that it is warmer now than at any time since that tree died 10,000 years ago”.
No, it does not.