whoops there goes another glacier
Believe it or not, Indonesia is home to a glacier. Today. But not for long, at this rate. The evidence of global warming piles up, and it’s evidence that cannot be put down to urban heat islands, or the defects of computer models, or any other sort of excuse.
JAKARTA, Indonesia – Lonnie Thompson spent years preparing for his expedition to the remote, mist-shrouded mountains of eastern Indonesia, hoping to chronicle the affect of global warming on the last remaining glacier in the Pacific. He’s worried he got there too late.
Even as he pitched his tent on top of Puncak Jaya, the ice was melting beneath him.
The 3-mile- (4,884-meter-) high glacier was pounded by rain every afternoon during the team’s 13-day trip, something the American scientist has never encountered in three decades of drilling ice cores. He lay awake at night listening to the water gushing beneath him.
By the time they were ready to head home, ice around their sheltered campsite had melted a staggering 12 inches (30 centimeters).