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ARMENIA AND GLOBAL WARMING
Grist Magazine, WA
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/10/22/180 35/652
Oct 24 2007
Climate change signals in the Caucasus Mountains
The following is a guest essay from Eric Pallant, professor of
environmental science at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pa., and
codirector of the NATO Advanced Study Institute on Integrated Water
Resources Management. He is reporting from the National Disasters
and Water Security conference in Yerevan, Armenia.
The last time there was dramatic climate change in Armenia, Noah
built an ark, floated for 40 days and nights, and disembarked on
Mount Ararat. Armenians insist they have a piece of his old boat in
a local museum. Mount Ararat serves as a useful backdrop, snowcapped
and picturesque, for the NATO meeting on Natural Disasters and Water
Security.
Mount Ararat makes an appearance in the morning light. (Photo:
Eric Pallant)
It turns out to be a much more difficult procedure to document climate
change in the Caucuses than, say, the Alps. Western Europeans have
been sending scientists into their mountains for decades, who then
return to their labs with a clear signal that montane temperatures
are rising. But after the Soviet Union broke up in the late '80s,
armies replaced Russian scientists in the Caucuses as wars raged in
Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. More than a decade of data was lost
-- probably the key decade, too, for picking up a signal.
That makes Maria Shahgdanova's research unique. She has continuous
data from two sites in the Caucuses: one on the north side of the
mountains in Russia, and another on the south side in Georgia. From
the 1930s to the 1970s, when the Alps were getting warmer, there was
no change here -- but beginning in 1967 temperatures started rising
like a low-grade fever.
Between 1985 and 2000, measurements of 113 mountain glaciers showed 107
retreating, five unchanging, and two advancing. On average, they gave
up 25 feet per year. Since the end of the 1900s, bare ice has decreased
by one-fourth, with 10 percent disappearing in just the last 15 years.
All of that melting ice is accumulating in lakes at the glacial
termini. In 1985 there were 16 major lakes. Fifteen years later,
there were 22 lakes, and eight of the existing lakes had increased
in size. Now comes the scary part: with the fall of the Soviet Union,
there has been large-scale deforestation, overgrazing, and unregulated
tourism development just below those lakes. When the ice dams burst,
as they are prone to do, the consequences are going to be catastrophic.
A second study from Georgia suggests that though floods are not
more frequent, their intensity has increased dramatically. Ditto for
Afghanistan, where floods used to be relied upon to irrigate fields.
Now they come out of the mountains with such force that houses in
the floodplain simply wash away. As if Afghans don't have enough to
worry about.
The sense at this meeting is that the former Soviet republics,
from Hungary and Romania east to the 'stans, have a new reason to be
paranoid. Most of the scientists here don't have enough long-term data
to confirm that the regional climate is changing; but looking out of
their windows, they sense that in some places rainfall is becoming
heavier and in others it is getting dryer.
Looking out my conference window, I see that Mount Ararat has
disappeared behind a smoky haze of dense air pollution.
Mount Ararat in the afternoon, shrouded in smog. (Photo: Eric Pallant)
Grist Magazine, WA
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/10/22/180 35/652
Oct 24 2007
Climate change signals in the Caucasus Mountains
The following is a guest essay from Eric Pallant, professor of
environmental science at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pa., and
codirector of the NATO Advanced Study Institute on Integrated Water
Resources Management. He is reporting from the National Disasters
and Water Security conference in Yerevan, Armenia.
The last time there was dramatic climate change in Armenia, Noah
built an ark, floated for 40 days and nights, and disembarked on
Mount Ararat. Armenians insist they have a piece of his old boat in
a local museum. Mount Ararat serves as a useful backdrop, snowcapped
and picturesque, for the NATO meeting on Natural Disasters and Water
Security.
Mount Ararat makes an appearance in the morning light. (Photo:
Eric Pallant)
It turns out to be a much more difficult procedure to document climate
change in the Caucuses than, say, the Alps. Western Europeans have
been sending scientists into their mountains for decades, who then
return to their labs with a clear signal that montane temperatures
are rising. But after the Soviet Union broke up in the late '80s,
armies replaced Russian scientists in the Caucuses as wars raged in
Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. More than a decade of data was lost
-- probably the key decade, too, for picking up a signal.
That makes Maria Shahgdanova's research unique. She has continuous
data from two sites in the Caucuses: one on the north side of the
mountains in Russia, and another on the south side in Georgia. From
the 1930s to the 1970s, when the Alps were getting warmer, there was
no change here -- but beginning in 1967 temperatures started rising
like a low-grade fever.
Between 1985 and 2000, measurements of 113 mountain glaciers showed 107
retreating, five unchanging, and two advancing. On average, they gave
up 25 feet per year. Since the end of the 1900s, bare ice has decreased
by one-fourth, with 10 percent disappearing in just the last 15 years.
All of that melting ice is accumulating in lakes at the glacial
termini. In 1985 there were 16 major lakes. Fifteen years later,
there were 22 lakes, and eight of the existing lakes had increased
in size. Now comes the scary part: with the fall of the Soviet Union,
there has been large-scale deforestation, overgrazing, and unregulated
tourism development just below those lakes. When the ice dams burst,
as they are prone to do, the consequences are going to be catastrophic.
A second study from Georgia suggests that though floods are not
more frequent, their intensity has increased dramatically. Ditto for
Afghanistan, where floods used to be relied upon to irrigate fields.
Now they come out of the mountains with such force that houses in
the floodplain simply wash away. As if Afghans don't have enough to
worry about.
The sense at this meeting is that the former Soviet republics,
from Hungary and Romania east to the 'stans, have a new reason to be
paranoid. Most of the scientists here don't have enough long-term data
to confirm that the regional climate is changing; but looking out of
their windows, they sense that in some places rainfall is becoming
heavier and in others it is getting dryer.
Looking out my conference window, I see that Mount Ararat has
disappeared behind a smoky haze of dense air pollution.
Mount Ararat in the afternoon, shrouded in smog. (Photo: Eric Pallant)