Around the world, glaciers are in danger from the effects of global warming; many of them are shrinking, and they’re shrinking rapidly. In Bolivia, the Chacaltaya Glacier melted away six years earlier than predicted, leaving the local slopes north of La Paz with a stretch of snow no bigger than the size of a tennis court. That leaves Jade Dragon in China and India’s Gulmarg as the highest ski runs available for thrill seekers.
“Chacaltaya was my bride in white, now she’s dressed for a funeral,” Alfredo Martinez, 74, said of the 17,785-foot-high (5,280 meters) glacier where he and Club Andino Boliviano members skied its sole run north of La Paz, Bolivia’s capital.
But skiing isn’t the only thing that the local population will miss with the loss of the 18,000 year old glacier; La Paz’s fresh water supply is also greatly affected. The glacier is one of many in the Cordillera Real range whose glacial runoff feeds into 10 hydroelectric plants that provide about 80 percent of the region’s power. In fact, shrinking glaciers endanger about a third of the potable water supply to La Paz and El Alto. For Bolivia, as many other countries, acting quickly and efficiently is imperative.
“Adaptation investments should take place today” as global warming isn’t going away, Vergara said. “Though the adaptation cost is going to be significant, it is likely to be less than the net impacts of climate change if no adaptation takes place.”
More here.
[Via: COP15.dk]
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Chacaltaya’s disappearance is a huge problem. I wrote about my visit to the mountain on the Traveler’s Notebook a while back: http://thetravelersnotebook.com/notes-from-road/hiking-the-chacltaya-glacier-global-climate-change-firsthand/