Debate on climate change and its impact hots up

The Tribune , Thursday, April 05, 2012
Correspondent : Tribune News Service
Manali: Glaciologists here say the rise of 115 particles per million (PPM) in human-induced carbon dioxide (CO2) level in the atmosphere and the change triggered by aerosols and soot, are major agents of climate change. There is an urgent need for reversing this trend in the climate change model to be presented at a meeting of the International Panel on Climate Change to be held in 2013.

The glaciologists gathered here for a three-day international symposium on “Cryosphere and Climate Change” say it is now established that there is a phenomenal rise of green house gases, mainly CO2, from 274 PPM recorded in 1860 before the industrial revolution in Europe to 389 PPM in 2011. “We are adding 2 PPM of CO2 into the atmosphere every year”.

“If the CO2 level in the atmosphere surges to 450 PPM, it can melt the frozen ice cap of the Antarctica that can push up the sea level by 200 feet, submerging sea-side metros like Mumbai and Tokyo and the like,” they warn.

But the rise in CO2 and the average rise in winter temperature in the Himalayan region will not wipe out glaciers in the Himalayas in another 1,000 to 1,500 years, says Dr VK Raina, a glaciologist and former Deputy Director-General, Geological Survey of India, who has been engaged in the study of Himalayan glaciers since 1979.

There is no doubt that glaciers are shrinking, but the rate of snow melt in the Himalayan glaciers is less as compared to glaciers in other parts of the world, he claims. “This is so because these glaciers are located above 4,000 m altitude where temperature is very less throughout the year,” he adds.

But Dr Venkatachalam R Ramaswami, Director, NOAA, Geophysical Dynamics Laboratory, USA, says green house gases have increased in the 20th century. Sulfate, soot and dust aerosols generated by transport have occurred in Asia affecting climate in the 21st century, he adds.

“We are using global climate model, CM3, in the International Penal on Climate Change concluding in 2013,” Dr Ramaswami adds.

Dr Raina, however, cites his study on effect of climate change in the Siachen glacier, world’s highest battlefield, saying there is “no significant effect of climate change found in the glacier”.

Director, Glaciology, Geological Survey of India, Arun Chaturvedi, who was a member of the Indian team to Antarctica, says the frozen continent has eight lakh-year-old history evidenced from its air bubbles and rings formed over the centuries and recorded level of green house gases. “There is an urgent need to reverse the rise in the CO2 level in the present-day climate change model,” he adds.

 
SOURCE : http://www.tribuneindia.com/2012/20120405/himachal.htm#3
 


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