ALASKA

See Level Rise Due to Glacier Melting in Alaska



See Level Rise Due to Glacier Melting in Alaska

Introduction

U.S. researchers could bring us new scientific evidence of the reality of global warning by their study of mountain glaciers of the State of Alaska. These are melting at an alarming rate and contribute to the increase in sea level of 0.14 mm globe each year according to measurements made by laser altimetry of 67 glaciers in Alaska (one fifth of them), from 1950 until at the mid-1990s (Hinzman et.al, 2005). A team of researchers from the Institute of Geophysics of the University of Alaska, located in Fairbanks, was able to establish that 85% of these glaciers melted faster than expected with a rate that even doubled since the early 1990s. Thus, "most glaciers have thinned several hundred meters at low altitude of about 20 meters at high altitude," said geologist Keith Echelmeyer, who led the research team (Echelmeyer, 1987). However, it remains cautious about the causes; the observation period was too short. Thus, changing winds and warm Pacific currents could influence temperatures in Alaska. Further they have increased by an average of 3 degrees Celsius over the past 30 years.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the effects of glacier melting in Alaska and its consequential effects on the ecosystem of the region.

Discussion

The melting of mountain glaciers contributes about 12 centimeters to increase global mean sea level by the end of the century, according to new research (Dyurgerov, 2001). The largest contributors to that fraction of sea level rise due to alpine glaciers are the Canadian Arctic, Alaska and the mainland of Antarctica. Those in the European Alps, New Zealand, the Caucasus, Western Canada and the Western United States of America, though minor contributors for their contribution, they will lose more than 50% of its current volume as calculated.

In the study, conducted by specialists from the University of Alaska in Fairbanks and University of British Columbia, Canada, is modeled volume loss and melting mountain glaciers 120,000. This research is one of the first to provide detailed projections by region phenomenon. Currently, this type of melting is responsible for a disproportionately large portion of sea level rise, even though these mountains contains less than one percent of all water on Earth is found in glaciers (Radic, 2008).

The results of the study published in January 2010 in the journal Nature Geosciences 1 by the LEGOS - 3/CNRS/IRD/CNES Toulouse University and the Universities of British Columbia, mountain glaciers of the State of Alaska lost about 42 km3 or 42 billion m3 of water per year between 1962 and 2006. The effect of this font was to raise the sea level by 0.12 millimeters per year (mm / year), 34% less an estimate made ??in 2002 by researchers at the Institute of Geophysics of the University of Alaska.

Melting Ice Glaciers that really melted in a century are mostly mountain glaciers. 2 large sheets (Greenland and Antarctica) have not yet begun to melt significantly. A climatologist American agency that measured during the two years 2006 and 2007 the ...