The World's Largest Tropical Ice Field is Vanishing

[n2doc]

The Quelccaya Ice Cap in the heart of the Peruvian Andres, is the largest tropical body of ice in the world. The ice cap is at an average altitude of 5,470 meters (18,600 ft) and spans an area of 44 square kilometers (17 miles). As the ice cap is retreating, it is exposing almost perfectly preserved plant specimens dating back 5,200 year, indicating that it has been more than 50 centuries since the ice cap was smaller than it is today.

According to recent research, one of the glaciers in this ice cap, the Peruvian Qori Kalis, like the snowfields of Africa's Mount Kilimanjaro, is rapidly melting and could soon vanish completely (comparisons with previous mapping showed 33% of Mount Kilimanjaro's ice had disappeared in the last two decades - 82% since 1912).

The icecap has lost approximately 20% of its area since 1978, and the current rate of retreat is increasing. Ice cores taken from Upper Fremont Glacier in Wyoming show an oxygen isotope profile similar to that of the Quelccaya ice cores at the end of the Little Ice Age, a period of cooler global temperatures between the years 1550 and 1850. The sudden alterations in the oxygen isotope ratio found in ice core samples from these two remotely located glaciers, provide evidence of a sudden global climate change in the mid-latitude regions of the planet.

"I would not be surprised to see half of it disappear in this coming year," said climatologist Lonnie Thompson, from Ohio State University. Thompson has been studying the Qori Kalis glacier since 1978.

more:
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2010/02/the-worlds-largest-tropical-ice-field-is-vanishing.html

[DefenseLawyer]

1. Hogwash!

Or didn't you notice that it snowed A LOT in Washington D.C. the other day?



Edited to add the :sarcasm: thingy for the sarcasm challenged.

[tabatha]

2. I must have missed the trucks transporting the snow.

[n2doc]

3. Somehow it didn't snow in Peru, though. n/t

[gristy]

4. shit. First sentence and we already have a comma between subject and verb

Should I read any further?

[izquierdista]

5. If you do

you won't win the Pedantic Putz of the Day award.

[gristy]

6. Well, if the author, is sticking commas between subject and verb, am I still somehow

to assume he got his global warming facts right? I am not optimistic.

[n2doc]

7. It's a blog

What do you expect. The underlying facts are unaffected by his error and your scorn.

[RaleighNCDUer]

8. Or, OTOH, it could be a missing comma after "Ice Cap", setting

the next phrase out from the heart of the sentence.

The Quelccaya Ice Cap, in the heart of the Peruvian Andres, is the largest tropical body of ice in the world.

Don't get all twisted up over a typo.