World’s Highest Ski Run Melted Away
Bolivia’s Chacaltaya Glacier, once known as the world’s highest ski run at 17,388 feet, has completely melted away, serving as a vivid example of the effects of climate change on the glaciers around the globe.
“Chacaltaya has disappeared. It no longer exists.” - Dr. Edson Ramirez, Institute of Hydraulics and Hydrology at the Universidad Mayor de San Andres
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In 1999, Ramirez, the head of a team of researchers studying the glacier since 1991, believed that the glacier would continue to exist until 2015, but the rate of melting tripled in the last ten years, and the once popular tourist destination is now completely gone.
Only a handful of dedicated skiers and tourists now visit Chacaltaya, which does have a tiny area to ski on snowy days (a run of maybe 600 feet) just down from the location of the former glacier. Alfredo Martinez, a founder of the Club Andino de Bolivia, says ”Very few come to ski now.”
The Chacaltaya glacier is part of Bolivia’s Tuni Condoriri glaciated mountain system, which has lost a third of its ice since 1983. The best guess from researchers is that Tuni and Condoriri, the two largest glaciers in the system, will not last more than 20 to 30 years. Illimani, a 21,200 foot mountain looming over La Paz, is home to several glaciers, which may melt completely within 30 years, said Ramirez.
“It’s very probable that other glaciers are disappearing faster than we thought.” - Ramirez
Ramirez sees the disappearance of Chacaltaya as an example of the effects of greenhouse gas accumulation and an increase in average temperatures worldwide, but says that the controversies over the validity of global warming are irrelevant, because the effects are apparent in the Andean glaciers.
More on Bolivia and Climate Change:
- Days of Skiing in Switzerland Could be Numbered
- Will Bolivia Be Ruined, Improved, or Hated Because of Electric Cars?
- Fight Over Natural Gas Has Bolivia on Brink of Collapse
- Black Carbon Reductions Could Reverse Arctic Warming Within Weeks
- Antarctica’s Glaciers Suffer Strong Retraction
- Tibetan Glaciers Shrinking Faster Than Expected
Image: IPCC Working Group II Fourth Assessment Report 2007, Figure 1.1.
[...] From Eco Worldly [...]
Usually I’m excited about warmer weather, but somthing tells me this is not a good thing?
God made the glacier melt because he is angry at people who are not practicing abstinence.
well if we are going to have climate change i’d rather wear shorts than a parka.It is undisputeable that the earth goes through climate change on it’s own. where we’re the hummers when the ice age ended. come on folks if your a self hating liberal whom has had the will to survive bred out of you, you can buy the fact that climate change is mankinds fault. the fact is you are not that important when mother earth decides to go to her storage unit and rotate her clothes for warmer weather.
…, it does this every year then it snows again, l2geography plz
When are we gonna learn??? It makes my heart ache to see that WE are the only ones to blame for these catastrophes! When are we going to realize that THIS IS OUR ONLY HOME???????
Mayas said the world would ‘end’ in 2012…I say, we’re not gonna make it. This is horrible…and no one seems to listen to us…
Hiya all
It might not be all that worrying realy, over thousands/millions of years there’s bound to be climate changes on earth, it could be something as simple as the earth moving ever so slightly off it’s axis, as long as we look after the planet it’ll look after us.
Ray W
For the truth about Global Warming Please read:
State of Fear by Michael Crichton
I don’t ski anyway.
Are you serious did someone really write that God has something to do with this..
This nation is so godly blinded that it is ridiculous…