THE best clues to the ongoing global
warming debate can be had from the
world's glaciers. Ice is melting at a
much faster rate in the Alpine region
since the '80s causing concern for
nations like Austria, Switzerland, and
France. Estimates state that one-third
to one-half of the ice cover has vanished over the last century. And a
"warmer world is a wetter world", says
John Houghton, chairperson of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC).
Glaciologists are focusing their
studies on the Alpine glaciers as "they
are among the best indicators we have
of a warming or cooling world", according to Wilfried Haeberli, director, World
Glacier Monitoring Service in Zurich,
Switzerland. The objective is to check if
the thinning of glaciers is a natural phenomenon or occurs due to human activities. IPCC's latest report has referred to
the melting of mountain glaciers as evidence of global warming caused mainly
by human-made activities.
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