Alps may crumble as permafrost melts
fe...@mscd.edu
ac=000579381554028&rtmo=aCBa9WdJ&atmo=99999999&pg=/et/01/1/4/walp04.html
Thursday 4 January 2001
Alps may crumble as permafrost melts
By Charles Clover, Environment Editor
PERMAFROST that holds some of Europe's highest mountain ranges together
is melting, threatening to deluge ski resorts and alpine settlements
with lethal mudslides and rockfalls, a conference heard yesterday.
The head of a team of scientists who have been monitoring the melting
of the permafrost in Europe's alpine regions for the European Union and
the Swiss Government said that the Swiss Alps had warmed by 0.5C to 1C
over the past 15 years.
Dr Charles Harris, of Cardiff University, told the Royal Geographical
Society/Institute of British Geographers' conference in Plymouth that
the dangers of melting permafrost applied even as far south as the
Sierra Nevada in Spain, where permafrost has been found on the highest
peaks.
Dr Harris and his team have established a monitoring system of
boreholes in mountain ranges in Norway, Sweden, Spitzergen and the
Pyrenees as well as in the Alps and Spain to measure how the permafrost
stands up to global warming predicted over the next 50 years.
Based on calculations made from low down in 100 metre-deep boreholes
near Murren and Zermatt in Switzerland, they calculated that the
temperatures in rock and mud in the Alps had increased by 1C to 2C over
the past century.
Changes in the permafrost had therefore paralleled the retreat of
glaciers worldwide over the past 100 years, according to the research
project entitled Pace, Permafrost and Climate in Europe. Dr Harris
said: "If the temperature there is only minus 2C or minus 3C it doesn't
take much warming to get that above freezing."
The top metre of ground will thaw anyway in summer, he said, but where
the permafrost begins to melt, there would be increased degrading of
the ground. With that would come a danger of mudslides, producing
potentially disastrous consequences in steep alpine valleys.
He added: "The likely consequences of degrading permafrost would be an
increase of slope failures. You are not going to see whole mountains
fall down in front of your eyes, it is going to be localised." The most
likely time for mudslides and rockfalls caused by melting permafrost
would be the months August, September and October.
Permafrost exists above heights of around 2,500 metres in the Alps and
around 3,000 metres in the Pyrenees. The further north you go, the
lower it occurs until on the island of Spitzbergen it occurs at ground
level. Dr Harris said that the melting of permafrost had implications
for buildings, mines and other structures, particularly older ones.
The melting of permafrost, and the consequent ground collapses it
brings, had always been very dynamic because of natural variation, but
it was likely to increase in the future because of the predicted rise
of between one and six degrees centigrade in temperatures over the next
century, he said.
see:
International Permafrost Association
http://www.geodata.soton.ac.uk/ipa/
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Irv Chidsey
seems to be worst at higher latitudes! ;>) <Grin>
Irv
fe...@mscd.edu posted:
>Date: 1/7/01 8:53 AM Eastern Standard Time
>Message-id: <939sdk$gtl$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>
Irv @ Webster
The only stupid question is the one you don't ask.
My e-mail address will work better if you un-despam it.
That is, remove "don'tspam".
Josh Halpern
Irv Chidsey wrote:
> ;>) Looks like that old "Urban Heat Island Effect" is biting us again. It
> seems to be worst at higher latitudes! ;>) <Grin>
You mean you haven't seen those overpopulated Euro castles in the
sky?
josh halpern
Leonard Evens
>
> Irv Chidsey wrote:
>
> > ;>) Looks like that old "Urban Heat Island Effect" is biting us again. It
> > seems to be worst at higher latitudes!
altitudes
;>) <Grin>
>
> You mean you haven't seen those overpopulated Euro castles in the
> sky?
>
> josh halpern
Well it seems pretty clear to me. The closer you are to the Sun,
the warmer it is going to be. :-) :-)
--
Leonard Evens l...@math.nwu.edu 847-491-5537
Dept. of Mathematics, Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL 60208
Aozotorp
Which would explain the permafrost in the first place = Right? = Not Likely!!!
Scott Nudds
: Well it seems pretty clear to me. The closer you are to the Sun,
: the warmer it is going to be. :-) :-)
Ya, and those worry warts were probably made their temperature
measurements when the earth was in it's summer season. (8-p