Frigid Farewells: 10 Vanishing Tropical Glaciers
Going, going, gone. Glaciers have been beating a steady retreat as global warming accelerates, and for some it’s a journey of no return. The most vulnerable mountain & highland glaciers are those in the tropics and their loss could be devastating for the local environment, not to mention the plants, animals and people who have depended on their life-giving water for thousands of years.
Qori Kalis Glacier, Quelccaya Ice Cap, Peru
(images via: WhyFiles and PNAS)
Qori Kalis glacier in the Peruvian Andes is retreating at a faster rate than at any time in the past 50 centuries. It’s estimated that the glacier will vanish entirely within the next 5 years. Qori Kalis, the world’s largest tropical glacier, is one of many ice tongues extending down from the Quelccaya Ice Cap, the largest body of ice in the tropics.
(image via: WhyFiles)
Besides the dramatic retreat of the Qori Kalis glacier itself, the most worrisome aspect of the above photo is the new glacial lake that has formed from meltwater. Such high-altitude lakes are often unstable and sudden events such as earthquakes and/or the calving of large icebergs can send huge tsunamis of frigid water cascading down into the populated valleys below.
Glaciers of the Rwenzori Range, Uganda and DRC, Africa
(images via: U of Toronto, SkiMountaineer and Touring Zanzibar)
The snow-capped peaks of the Rwenzori Range soar up to 16,761 ft (5,109 m) high and were referred to by the ancient Romans as the Mountains Of The Moon, source of the Nile River’s water. Their great heights have not protected the Rwenzori glaciers from the effects of global warming, however. A survey taken in 1906 showed 43 named glaciers with a total area of 2.9 square miles (7.5 sq km) of ice spread across 6 of the range’s tallest mountains. Approximately half of Africa’s total glacial ice was locked into these frozen rivers. A century later more than half of the ice has vanished, leaving a mere 0.6 square miles (1.5 sq km) of ice on just 3 mountains.
(image via: U of Toronto)
The Elena Glacier on Mount Stanley, tallest of the Rwenzori peaks, shows the dramatic shrinkage documented over the past century but which has accelerated alarmingly in the past several decades.
Glaciers at Iztaccíhuatl, Mexico
(images via: Life In Small Bites, Globalize-Peace and Mapa-Mexico)
There aren’t many glaciers in Mexico… and soon there will be none. “We estimate the glaciers could last another 20 or 30 years,” says Hugo Delgado, a glaciologist from UNAM university in Mexico City. Twenty years ago glaciers existed on three Mexican volcanoes: Popocatepetl, Iztaccihuatl and Pico de Orizaba. By the year 2000 Popocatepetl’s glaciers had vanished though a series of eruptions in the 1990s certainly hastened their demise.
(image via: Treehugger)
Iztaccihuatl’s glaciers are sure to follow that path to oblivion, having shrunk by around 70 percent since 1960. University of Zurich glaciologist Christian Huggel is blunt in his assessment of the volcano’s fast-shrinking ice fields, stating “Iztaccihuatl’s glaciers are doomed to death.”
Puncak Jaya, West Papua, Indonesia
(images via: Earthobservatory/NASA and PBase)
Puncak Jaya, also known as Carstenz’s Pyramid, stands 16,024 ft (4,884 m) tall and is the highest mountain peak in the region of Oceania. The strikingly beautiful mountain hosts some of the world’s only equatorial glaciers just below its summit, though they’re shrinking fast. The photos above date from 1936 (left) and 1972, while the NASA Landsat image dates from May of 2003. The Meren Glacier has since disappeared entirely.
(image via: Wikipedia via NASA)
The above NASA image from 2005 shows the remnants of Puncak Jaya’s glaciers, now dwarfed by the open-pit Grasberg Mine. The unsightly hole is the world’s largest gold mine and the third-largest copper mine. The contrast between the contraction of Indonesia’s only natural glaciers and the expansion of human commercial activity in this once isolated area is both astounding and unsettling.
Chacaltaya Glacier, Bolivia
(images via: CSMonitor, Treehugger and 7est)
Members of Bolivia’s Andean Ski Club have been plying the slopes of the 17,400 ft (5,300 m) high Chacaltaya Glacier for over 70 years but like the glacier itself, all good things must come to an end. Less than a decade ago Bolivia’s only ski resort was able to cater to skiers and snowboarders, though with each passing year the snow base became thinner and rock outcrops intruded ever closer to the remaining runs. The image above, top, shows the slope in 2004. By 2008, the glacier that supported world’s highest ski resort and the one closest to the equator was on its last legs.
(image via: Photographers Direct)
2009 saw the last vestiges of the Chacaltaya Glacier slip away, leaving the mountainside bare for the first time in recorded history. Though the loss of the glacier will have an immediate impact on Bolivia’s sports and hospitality industry, things look even bleaker in the long term for farmers, businesses and urban residents who depended on its meltwater for their lives and livelihoods.
Sierra Nevada Glaciers, California, USA
(images via: Hassan Basagic, Portland State University)
The glaciers of California’s Sierra Nevada range include Lilliput Glacier located in Tulare County, 16 miles north of Sequoia National Park. Lilliput Glacier is the southernmost glacier in the United States. Most of the Sierra Nevada’s glaciers have been regularly monitored and photographed over the past century or more, and although many of them expanded in the 1980s they all have resumed their steady retreat. The series of before & after photos above is startling to say the least. From the top down are Dana Glacier (Aug 1883 – Sept 8, 2004), Lyell Glacier (Aug 7, 1903 – Aug 14, 2003) and Darwin Glacier (Aug 14 1908 – Aug 14, 2004).
(image via: Glaciers Online)
Most of the smaller glaciers in the Sierra Nevada range are situated on north- or northeast-facing slopes where bright California sunshine cannot directly reach them. Shaded or not, however, rising temperatures will inexorably take their toll on these most southerly of America’s glaciers.
Mount Kenya, Africa
(images via: Mount Kenya Wildlife Conservancy, Kenya-Advisor and Brian Whittaker)
The second tallest mountain in Africa after Mount Kilimanjaro, Mount Kenya stands 17,057 ft (5,199 m) tall and its eroded slopes harbor 11 rapidly shrinking glaciers. Actually an extinct volcano, Mount Kenya is located in the central part of the African nation just south of the equator. Water coursing down the mountain’s flanks in all four seasons provides sustenance to millions of people and copious wildlife on the dusty plains below. At least, for now.
(image via: Nationmaster)
Mount Kenya’s location so close to the equator causes its glaciers to be exposed to direct sunlight on all sides as the year swings from summer to winter and back again. As well, the region is drier than in the past and receives less precipitation in the form of rain or, at altitude, snow. Mount Kenya’s glaciers (Lewis Glacier, the largest, is shown above) are thus not being replenished and it’s estimated they will all vanish in the next 20 to 30 years.
Monte Perdido’s Glaciers, Spain
(images via: Iberia Nature, Adventure For Everyone and Carayol)
Monte Perdido (Mont Perdu in French) means “Lost Mountain” – and it will lose its glacier sometime in the next 40 to 60 years. Unlike many other glaciers, the ones on Monte Perdido are not remnants of the great Ice Ages thousands of years ago. Rather, the glaciers were born during the so-called Little Ice Age, a period of cooler temperatures which gripped Europe between roughly 1540 and 1880.
(image via: Mountain Misadventures)
Since their peak surface area of 1,779 hectares in 1894, the glaciers of the Spanish Pyrenees have decreased by 85 percent to a mere 290 hectares in 2000. The decrease has not been gradual: 52 percent of the loss occurred in the last 20 years and 30 percent occurred in the decade leading up to 2001.
Mingyong Glacier, Yunnan, China
(images via: Roving Light and Travelblog)
The Mingyong Glacier in China’s Yunnan province is the country’s lowest glacier in elevation and its most southerly in latitude. Fed by snowfall on 22,107 ft (6,740 m) Mount Meili, the Mingyong Glacier has a steady and abundant source of ice yet has still retreated approximately 650 ft (200 m) in the last four years.
(image via: PlanetArk)
Taken as a whole, the once-mighty glaciers of the Tibetan region are melting away at an annual rate of 7 percent. This does not bode well for the rivers that drain them, which include some of the greatest rivers in China and India. Several billion people’s lives will be irreparably changed for the worse should glaciers like the Mingyong continue their rapid retreat to oblivion.
Glaciers Of Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, Africa
(images via: Socially Responsible Travel and Daily Galaxy)
The poster child for global warming and its effect on the world’s tropical glaciers has to be Mount Kilimanjaro. This breathtakingly beautiful, solitary mountain rises 19,331 ft (5,892 m) above the East African plains and has been crowned with a cap of blinding white ice for as long as 12,000 years. Sadly, 85 percent of Kilimanjaro’s glaciers vanished between 1912 and 2007 and experts state that at the current rate the remaining ice fields will be gone in just 20 years – perhaps sooner.
(images via: The Guardian and Phillippe Gatta)
The comparison aerial photos at above top display the shocking recession of Kilimanjaro’s snowfields in the span of a mere 13 years (1992 to 2005). The pair of images just below compare February 1993 with February of 2000, thus discounting any seasonal variations.
(image via: AWBphoto)
Organizations like Greenpeace have been raising awareness of the dire situation facing the world’s glaciers, sometimes in very provocative ways. One example was the Tunick-Greenpeace Installation that took place on August 20, 2007 at Switzerland’s Aletsch Glacier, in which 600 people removed their clothing to show affinity with the inexorable uncovering of the earth when glaciers melt away. Here’s a short video describing this unique event:
Tunick-Greenpeace Installation at Switzerland\’s Aletsch Glacier, via Greenpeace
(image via: Puppies and Flowers)
Scientists and climatologists are not completely in agreement as to the real roots of global warming but regardless of the cause, the effects are all too real. Indeed, it may already be too late to save many of the world’s glaciers, especially those in sensitive tropical regions, even if humanity as a whole made a concerted effort to do so.
