Almost complete loss of glaciers in the Andes expected by 2080

J. Won Park in Arirang: Most glaciers in the Andes will be gone by the year 2080. That's the worst case scenario painted by the World Bank in its latest climate change report.

The report says the world's average temperature could rise by four degrees Celsius by the end of the century, if the world doesn't take appropriate steps to stop global warming. The report, which mostly focuses on Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa, says glaciers have already significantly retreated in the Andes.

It says that, if the trend continues, cities around the mountain range could be at risk of flooding and freshwater supplies could start to dry up. The grim projection goes on to say that, if the average global temperature rises by more than four degrees Celsius, sea levels will rise by almost 60 centimeters.

This would mean an increased risk of storms and tropical cyclones, especially for low-lying countries and small island states. The report also predicts that, in the Middle East and North Africa, warmer average temperatures will threaten already scarce water resources and negatively affect crop yields....

The Perito Moreno glacier in Argentina, shot by Jorge Láscar, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons 2.0 license 

New forecasting method for predicting extreme floods in the Andes mountains

A press release from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research: Predicting floods following extreme rainfall in the central Andes is enabled by a new method. Climate change has made these events more frequent and more severe in recent decades. Now complex networks analysis of satellite weather data makes it possible to produce a robust warning system for the first time, a study to be published in the journal Nature Communications shows. This might allow for improved disaster preparedness. As the complex systems technique builds upon a mathematical comparison that can be utilised for any time series data, the approach could be applied to extreme events in all sorts of complex systems.

“Current weather forecast models cannot capture the intensity of the most extreme rainfall events, yet these events are of course the most dangerous, and can have severe impacts for the local population, for example major floods or even landslides,” says lead author Niklas Boers of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). “Using complex networks analysis, we now found a way to predict such events in the South American Andes.”

When the monsoon hits South America from December to February, it brings moist warm air masses from the tropical Atlantic. Travelling westwards, these winds are blocked by the steep Andes mountains, several thousand metres high, and turn southwards. Under specific air pressure conditions, the warm air masses, loaded with moisture, meet cold and dry winds approaching from the south. This leads to abundant rainfa
ll at high elevations, resulting in floods in the densely populated foothills of the Bolivian and Argentinian Andes. “Surprisingly, and in contrast to widespread understanding so far, these events propagate against the southward wind direction,” says Boers.

The international team of scientists performed a ‘Big Data’ analysis of close to 50,000 high-resolution weather data time series dating from the 15 years since high quality satellite data became available, generated by NASA together with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. “We found that these huge rainfall clusters start off in the area around Buenos Aires, but then wander northwestward towards the Andes, where after two days they cause extreme rainfall events”, says Boers. The new method makes it possible to correctly predict 90 percent of extreme rainfall events in the Central Andes occurring during conditions of the El Niño weather phenomenon when floods are generally more frequent, and 60 percent of those occurring under any other conditions....

The Andes between Chile and Argentina, shot by Jorge Morales Pideri, public domain

Protecting 17% of earth's land could save two-thirds of plant species

Duke University News: Protecting key regions that comprise just 17 percent of Earth’s land may help preserve more than two-thirds of its plant species, according to a new Duke University-led study by an international team of scientists.

The researchers from Duke, North Carolina State University and Microsoft Research used computer algorithms to identify the smallest set of regions worldwide that could contain the largest numbers of plant species. They published their findings today in the journal Science.

“Our analysis shows that two of the most ambitious goals set forth by the 2010 Convention on Biological Diversity -- to protect 60 percent of Earth’s plant species and 17 percent of its land surface -- can be achieved, with one major caveat,” said Stuart L. Pimm, Doris Duke Professor of Conservation Ecology at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment.

“To achieve these goals, we need to protect more land, on average, than we currently do, and much more in key places such as Madagascar, New Guinea and Ecuador,” Pimm said. “Our study identifies regions of importance. The logical -- and very challenging -- next step will be to make tactical local decisions within those regions to secure the most critical land for conservation.”

Plant species aren’t haphazardly distributed across the planet. Certain areas, including Central America, the Caribbean, the Northern Andes and regions in Africa and Asia have much higher concentrations of endemic species, that is, those which are found nowhere else.

“Species endemic to small geographical ranges are at a much higher risk of being threatened or endangered than those with large ranges," said Lucas N. Joppa, a conservation scientist at Microsoft Research’s Computational Science Laboratory in Cambridge, U.K. "We combined regions to maximize the numbers of species in the minimal area. With that information, we can more accurately evaluate each region’s relative importance for conservation, and assess international priorities accordingly.”...

A rainbow eucalyptus in New Guinea, shot by Jeff Kubina, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

The dramatic retreat of the Andean glaciers over the last 30 years

Institut de recherche pour le developpment, the Media Centre: The glaciers in the tropical Andes shrunk between 30 and 50% in 30 years, which represents the highest rate observed over the last three centuries. IRD researchers and their partners( 1) recently published a summary which chronicles the history of these glaciers since their maximum extension, reached between 1650 and 1730 of our era, in the middle of the Little Ice Age*. The faster melting is due to the rapid climate change which has occurred in the tropics since the 1950s, and in particular since the end of the 1970s, leading to an average temperature rise of 0.7°C in this part of the Andes. At the current pace of their retreat, small glaciers could disappear within the next 10 to 15 years, affecting water supply for the populations.

 For the first time, a study conducted by IRD researchers and their partners(, recently published in the journal The Cryosphere , provides a retrospective of more than three centuries on glacier evolution in the entire tropical Andean region .

Since their maximum extension, reached between 1650 and 1750, during the Little Ice Age , the tropical Andean glaciers have gradually retreated. Over the last 30 years, however, their decline has taken dramatic proportions. This summary clearly shows the peculiarity of these last decades, with melting speeds that had never been reached before in 300 years: the surface areas of glaciers in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia were reduced from 30-50% since the end of the 1970s and up to 80-100% in extreme cases. This new study confirms the acceleration of climate change in this part of the world at the end of the 20th century.

...Today, it is vital to improve forecasts in order to better anticipate future impacts on Andean populations. Mountain glaciers help regulate water resources throughout the year. Millions of people living in the Andes depend on it during the dry season for purposes of agriculture, hydroelectric energy and urban consumption.

The Casaño Overa glacier in Argentina spills down over cliffs, leaving waterfalls and the 'thunder' of falling ice that gives the mountain its namesake. Shot by McKay Savage, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr,
under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Andean glaciers melting at "unprecedented" rates

Reuters: Climate change has shrunk Andean glaciers between 30 and 50 percent since the 1970s and could melt many of them away altogether in coming years, according to a study published on Tuesday in the journal Cryosphere.

Andean glaciers, a vital source of fresh water for tens of millions of South Americans, are retreating at their fastest rates in more than 300 years, according to the most comprehensive review of Andean ice loss so far.

The study included data on about half of all Andean glaciers in South America, and blamed the ice loss on an average temperature spike of 0.7 degree Celsius (1.26 degrees Fahrenheit) over the past 70 years.

"Glacier retreat in the tropical Andes over the last three decades is unprecedented," said Antoine Rabatel, the lead author of the study and a scientist with the Laboratory for Glaciology and Environmental Geophysics in Grenoble, France....

Cerro El Muerto as seen from Ojos del Salado, Andes. Shot by sergejf, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Can vegans stomach the unpalatable truth about quinoa?

A comment by Joanne Blythman in the Guardian (UK): Not long ago, quinoa was just an obscure Peruvian grain you could only buy in wholefood shops. We struggled to pronounce it (it's keen-wa, not qui-no-a), yet it was feted by food lovers as a novel addition to the familiar ranks of couscous and rice. Dieticians clucked over quinoa approvingly because it ticked the low-fat box and fitted in with government healthy eating advice to "base your meals on starchy foods".

Adventurous eaters liked its slightly bitter taste and the little white curls that formed around the grains. Vegans embraced quinoa as a credibly nutritious substitute for meat. Unusual among grains, quinoa has a high protein content (between 14%-18%), and it contains all those pesky, yet essential, amino acids needed for good health that can prove so elusive to vegetarians who prefer not to pop food supplements.

Sales took off. Quinoa was, in marketing speak, the "miracle grain of the Andes", a healthy, right-on, ethical addition to the meat avoider's larder (no dead animals, just a crop that doesn't feel pain). Consequently, the price shot up – it has tripled since 2006 – with more rarified black, red and "royal" types commanding particularly handsome premiums.

But there is an unpalatable truth to face for those of us with a bag of quinoa in the larder. The appetite of countries such as ours for this grain has pushed up prices to such an extent that poorer people in Peru and Bolivia, for whom it was once a nourishing staple food, can no longer afford to eat it. Imported junk food is cheaper. In Lima, quinoa now costs more than chicken. Outside the cities, and fuelled by overseas demand, the pressure is on to turn land that once produced a portfolio of diverse crops into quinoa monoculture.

In fact, the quinoa trade is yet another troubling example of a damaging north-south exchange, with well-intentioned health and ethics-led consumers here unwittingly driving poverty there. It's beginning to look like a cautionary tale of how a focus on exporting premium foods can damage the producer country's food security....

Photo of quinoa by Vi..Cult..., Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Successful completion of climate change adaptation project in the Peruvian Andes

UNESCO: Negotiated with the support of the World Heritage Centre, this 3 year Swiss government financed project entitled "Local Capacities for climate change adaptation and risk management: Manu National Park in Peru - World Heritage Site" was brought to a successful close earlier this month.   Fully implemented by the UNESCO Lima office, the project was founded on a strategic alliance with Peru’s National Protected Areas Service. 

The project recognized the close link between the conservation of this vast natural World Heritage site, and the well-being of neighbouring communities.  It worked on two distinct fronts – the first on the development of a climate change adaptation plan for the Manu National Park (also a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve), and the second on helping neighbouring communities improve their understanding of climate change, its implications on their livelihoods, and on the possible measures they could take to be prepared for it.    Over 4,400 students received information on this issue, and 60 teachers were trained.   Municipalities considered vulnerable to climate change benefitted from the development of manuals on climate change risk management.

As climate change and its effects on World Heritage sites are increasingly understood, projects such as these help stakeholders from community to intergovernmental levels come to terms with the real implications in terms of livelihoods and biodiversity conservation.   The World Heritage Centre is currently developing a “Climate Change Adaptation Field Guide for Natural World Heritage Site Managers” in an effort to help prepare the world’s most outstanding natural areas deal with the effects of climate change....

A river bank in Manu National Park, shot by As578, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license

For Ecuadorian village, a struggle to adapt to changing climate

Annika Mcginnis in the Kansas City Star via McClatchy:  Frosts aren't on time for the 960 people living in [Ayaloma, a] tiny, remote village, hidden on a chilly, windswept mountain ridge in South America. A minor problem? Maybe for some. But in the Andean community, 8,800 feet above sea level, frosts - and their impact on crop cycles - are kind of a big deal.

In this agricultural community, crops are planted during the full moon, a tradition meant to help ensure a full harvest. But these days, the harvests aren't as full. Village residents say it's the mark of climate change descending upon the Ayaloman people.

"In Ecuador, we've really experienced a sudden change in our climate," said Ana Loja, a professor at the University of Cuenca, in the Andes of southern Ecuador. "We cannot say, 'Maybe this is not happening,' but I think everyone is aware it is a real problem."

...In Latin America and the Caribbean, development experts say climate change is slowly but surely showing its effects. By 2050, the world's expected temperature rise of about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit will cost the region more than $100 billion annually, according to a recent report by the Inter-American Development Bank, which finances research and development efforts in the region.

Because of its location and dependence on natural resources, Latin America is especially vulnerable to climatic effects, the report said. By 2050, it predicted widespread flooding and coastal damage; the loss of Andean glaciers, Amazon rainforest and much of the Caribbean's coral region; a $32 billion to $54 billion annual decrease in agricultural exports; and increased tropical diseases and severe weather...

A vicuna near the Chimborazo volcano in Ecuador, a phenomenal shot by Dabit100 / David Torres Costales@DavoTC, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Indigenous knowledge 'invaluable' for Andean adaptation

Emily Kirkland in AlertNet:  In Eastern Africa, severe drought is causing massive famines. In the United States, temperature records are soaring due to one of the warmest winters in decades. From pine beetle infestations in the Rockies to thinning ice in the Arctic, the impacts of climate change are inescapable.

Adapting to these changes is not an easy task. In addition to using modern science and engineering, we will need to draw on indigenous peoples’ traditional knowledge. This knowledge is an invaluable and often overlooked tool for adaptation.

Indigenous peoples have extensive knowledge of their local environments, gained through hundreds of years of observation and trial and error. They possess a large repository of strategies, skills, and techniques for dealing with climate variability.

Three examples from the Peruvian Andes – included in a Brown University paper - illustrate the importance of the role of indigenous knowledge for adaptation. In the southern Andes, an archaeologist named Ann Kendall is working with local communities to recover Inca-era terraces long abandoned as ruins. These terraces can successfully retain water for prolonged periods, allowing farmers to withstand droughts.

In nearby Cusco, six mountain communities have banded together to conserve hundreds of native potato varieties. Unlike imported white potatoes, many native varieties are resistant to heat, drought, and crop pests making them a more resilient option in the face of climate impacts....

Peruvian potatoes, shot by Edgar Amador Espinoza M., Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license 

Elders interpret climate change in the Peruvian Andes

Milgros Salazar in the Business Mirror via IPS: A unique response to the challenge of global warming is happening in rural areas of Peru, where a network of indigenous elders is working out how to adjust weather forecasts in the light of climate change, while taking measures to safeguard their crops. “Before, things happened at the right time. Now, strange things are going on with the climate.”

...“People are clearly aware that the rains arrive early or late, the wells dry out quickly, frosts come at any time, the soil is more compacted due to the heat and because water does not infiltrate into the soil to the same extent,” sociologist Ricardo Claverías, with the Centre for Research, Education and Development (CIED), told Inter Press Service (IPS).

Since the 1980s the CIED has worked to protect and preserve the traditional knowledge of campesinos in a score of communities in Puno. “We know the climate is changing by looking at nature. For example, up until 10 years ago, that apu [mountain peak] had snow on its crest all year round,” Valentín Ccahuana, leader of the Ccasacancha community in Apurímac, told representatives of the United Nations Joint Programme on Climate Change in Cuzco.

But indigenous campesinos in the highlands have developed a wealth of traditional knowledge over generations from observation of bioindicators, like the behavior of plants and animals. “Their accumulated experience gives them an edge on dealing with the challenges posed by climate change today,” Edwin Mansilla, head of the environmental management division of the Cuzco regional government, told IPS...

A view of the Cordillera Huallanca, by Waterloo, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

Hydropower threatens Andes–Amazon link

Gayathri Vaidyanathan in Nature: Out of some 151 dams proposed for the Amazon river system, more than half will sever the connectivity between the Amazon lowlands and headwaters in the Andes mountains, according to the latest study. The unimpeded flow of the river over the past 10 million years is thought to have fuelled the extraordinary biodiversity of the Amazon ecosystem1.

The finding follows decisions to prioritize hydropower development in the countries that share the Amazon tributaries, including Bolivia, Columbia, Peru, Brazil and Ecuador. As many as 48 dams that produce at least two megawatts of power each are already in place, and there are plans to triple that number by 2030. Peru, especially, is aggressively pursuing hydropower in cooperation with Brazil.

The study, published in the journal PLoS ONE2, is the first to evaluate the impact of all proposed dams on the six Amazon river basins across five countries, together with associated projects to construct road and power lines. Previous impact assessments focused only on individual projects and country-level impacts.

This kind of analysis “has been needed for a long time to take a comprehensive view of the Amazon basin”, says Robert Naiman, a river ecologist at the University of Washington in Seattle.

The study began in 2010 when Matt Finer, a staff ecologist at Save America’s Forests in Washington DC, and his colleague Clinton Jenkins, of North Carolina State University in Raleigh, acquired data on the locations of proposed dams from government ministries in all five nations. The information included their power-generation capacities and their requirements for roads and electric grids....

Lock number one under construction at Tucurui Dam in Brazil, shot by Luis Felipe Paulinyi, Wikimedia Commons, public domain

Rising temperatures push Andean species skyward

Nathanael Massey in E&E News: The cloud forests of the Andes mountains, bound between the Amazonian lowlands to the west and the peaks of the Andean uplift to the east, harbor worlds upon worlds. Within the mountains' mosaic of high plateaus, deep-cut valleys and steeply climbing slopes, unique ecosystems have flourished side by side for centuries, their equilibrium protected by the rugged terrain and 12,000 years of relatively stable climate. Home to nearly one-sixth of the world's plant species, as well as hundreds of kinds of mammals, birds and amphibians, the Andean cloud forests are one of the most biologically diverse regions on Earth.

They are also among the most vulnerable. Isolation has given rise to a high number of endemic -- or regionally unique -- species with little history of migration, leaving them ill-equipped to respond to the human influences that have crept through the forests in recent decades. Mineral extraction and agricultural deforestation have taken a toll, and incursions into the region show every sign of expanding.

Most alarmingly, warming temperatures have accelerated a process of upslope migration, begun at the close of the last ice age, that threatens to push the region's biodiversity into increased competition, nutrient-poor soil conditions and, finally, thin air, according to forest ecologists working in the region.

Although many South American countries have taken steps to protect Andean ecosystems, their efforts might be insufficient. A new study led by researchers at Duke University has identified and mapped hundreds of endemic plant and animal species across 17,000 miles of east-facing Andean uplift, a section ranging through Bolivia and Peru. It found that only 20 percent of areas with the highest levels of biodiversity are protected by government regulations.

"What our study showed was incredibly scary," said Bruce Young, director of species science at the organization NatureServe and a co-author of the study....

Cloud forest near Mindo, Ecuador, shot by Ayacop, public domain

Rain may disappear from Latin America's breadbasket

Mario Osava in IPS: South America still has vast extensions of land available for growing crops to help meet the global demand for food and biofuels. But the areas of greatest potential agricultural production -- central-southern Brazil, northern Argentina, and Paraguay -- could be left without the necessary rains.

Every deforested hectare in the Amazon -- a jungle biome extending across the northern half of South America -- weakens the system that has been protecting the region from the desert fate of the Sahara, a third of Australia, and other lands located approximately 30 degrees latitude north and south, warns scientist Antonio Nobre, of the Brazil's national space research institute, INPE.

Halting deforestation in the Amazon needed to be done "by yesterday" and Brazil's official goal to reduce it 80 percent by 2020 is like "quitting smoking when you have advanced lung cancer; when you're already dying," Nobre told IPS. We should already be rebuilding the destroyed forests in order to restore equilibrium, he said, adding that monoculture of eucalyptus and African palm trees is not the answer.

"We don't know where the point of no return is," when forest degradation will become irreversible, and lands that benefited from the rains generated in the Amazon turn to desert, said the agronomist who lived 22 years in that region as a researcher, before joining INPE, in São José dos Campos, 100 kilometres from São Paulo.

The Amazon forest and the barrier created by the Andes Mountains, which run north-to-south through South America, channel the humid winds, now known as "flying rivers." Those winds ensure rainfall for a region that is the continental leader in meat, grain and fruit exports, and a world leader in sugar, soybeans and orange juice. The flying-river phenomenon, as established by climate researchers, led Nobre and other scientists around the globe to a new theory, the "biotic pump," which explains climate phenomena, equilibrium and disequilibrium in the Earth's natural systems -- and in which forest biomes play an essential role….

The Amazon River flowing through the rainforest, from NASA

Mapping the riches of the tropical Andes

Humberto Marquez in IPS via Tierramérica: The Ecosystems Map of the Northern and Central Andes could serve as a guide for environmental conservation of this South American area covering 1.5 million square kilometres and holding the world's highest concentration of biodiversity.

The tropical Andes, the stretch of the mountain range that includes the Central Andes (Bolivia and Peru) and Northern Andes (Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela), were dubbed the "global epicentre of biodiversity" by British ecologist Norman Myers.

The zone holds 45,000 types of plants (20,000 of which are endemic) and 3,400 vertebrate animal species (more than 1,500 of which are endemic) on just one percent of the planet's land surface, according to figures from Conservation International.

These riches "are distributed among 133 specific ecosystems that we have inventoried for our map of areas at more than 500 metres of altitude, of which 77 are in Peru, 69 in Bolivia, 31 in Ecuador, 22 in Colombia and 21 in Venezuela," environmentalist Eulogio Chacón-Moreno, head of the project in Venezuela, told Tierramérica.

The map, initially presented in April, was conceived as a tool to "identify gaps and priorities for conservation in the national agencies for protected areas, and to develop a set of indicators that allows us to assess the state of conservation of the Andean ecosystems," said Chacón-Moreno.

Such is the case of the "páramos", treeless high plateaus "with a high percentage of endemic species, unique diversity for the way the species interrelate, and a highly important source of freshwater," Vanessa Cartaya, of the regional Andean Páramo Project, sponsored by the Global Environment Facility, told Tierramérica…..

The tropical Andes in Bolivia, Rurrenabaque outside La Paz, shot by Warren H, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License

Climate change to cost Andean countries billions

Edie.net: Climate change could bring economic chaos to the countries crossed by the Andes as rising temperatures play havoc with the glaciers on which many of the region's industries rely. The annual cost of climate change in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru could be breaking the US$30bn barrier by 2025, according to South American scientists. This is the conclusion of a report prepared by Peru's former agriculture minister, Carlos Amat y León, for the Andean Community (CAN).

The document is a kind of Stern Report for the region, tallying the potential economic damage linked to glacial loss, flooding, disruption to water supply and more frequent occurrences of extreme weather events tied to El Niño. Mr Amat y Leon said: "Climate change is already happening. Floods, droughts, landslides, frosts, and landslips virtually doubled between 2002 and 2006, as compared with the five-year period 1987-1991.

"Since 1970, every single province in the CAN countries has experienced at least one hydrometeorological disaster." He said that climate change has been evident in the sub-region for over 30 years…

The Andes between Chile and Argentina, photo by Jorge Morales Píderit Moraleh, who has generously released the image into the public domain via Wikimedia Commons. Thank you, Jorge