Glacial Melt Accelerating To Record Pace Across Norway - Aftenposten

[hatrack]

It's been a warm summer in Norway, and that's sped up the shrinking process that already had hit the country's glaciers. Experts say the glaciers are breaking up and literally running away at a record tempo this summer. The melting of the glaciers will make them more dangerous, experts warn, adding that some may even disappear entirely within the next 50 years.

The glacial runoff, meanwhile, is filling up the local rivers they feed. The river tied to the glacial Nigardsbreen, part of the Jostedals glacier in the county of Sogn og Fjordane, has been recorded as having 50 percent more water in it than normal.

"Never before has there been such a large difference in the rivers coming off glaciers and those that aren't fed by glaciers," Rune Engeset of the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (Norges vassdrags- og energidirektorat, NVE) told newspaper Aftenposten.

"Tourists on board the cruiseships ask why there's so much water in some rivers while others are almost dry," he noted. The answer lies in the extremely warm and unusually dry summer over most of southern Norway, and especially in the mountains. The Vosso river system, for example, has no links to glaciers and its reservoirs now hold only half the amount of water in a normal year.

EDIT

http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article1422778....

[nam78_two]

1. k&r& sigh

[lostnfound]

2. The fjords are so beautiful

[NNadir]

3. Except for their new gas plant, almost all of Norway's electricity

depends on their rivers.

This is a big deal for Norway, long term.

[Mr_Spock]

4. I asked about melting when I was in Finland last fall.

They were like "it's happening everywhere" as if it was so obvious that nobody even talks about it anymore. Since many of them own islands off the coast that the can only get to in the summer, I don't even think they mind that much at this early stage.

[Gregorian]

5. Oh boy. This is looking worse by the moment.

People are still not thinking in terms of humans as being one. But our affect on the planet is related to us as a whole. Unfortunately, we seem to only change when there is a crisis. Well, this appears to be a crisis. And it is not going to reverse. I am worried that our future will be very bleak. And this fresh water is mixing with the concentration of salinated ocean water to alter the planet in even further disturbing ways. I'm officially worried. The reports are widespread and irrefutable. Damn.


One thing that keeps coming into my thoughts is the highly concentrated burning of fuel in the wars we have been waging. In Iraq alone we have burned nearly a billion gallons of fuel, from my calculation. This is not insignificant. Yet it is not much compared to what the planet consumes over a fairly short period of time. We're blowing it! And we will not stop. Who is going to stop first? You? Me? It's ugly as hell.