Yahoo News 5 Sep 08;
Climate change will melt the 21 remaining glaciers in the Pyrenees mountains before 2050, a group of Spanish researchers said Friday.
"The steady increase in temperature -- a total of 0.9 degrees Celsius from 1890 to today -- indicates that the Pyrenees glaciers will disappear before 2050, experts say," said a statement published on the SINC website, an official science news site.
The melting of the glaciers is "a result of the global warming we are experiencing," said Juan Gonzalez Trueba, professor at the University of Cantrabria, who led the study.
"High mountains are areas which are particularly sensitive to changes in the climate and environment. The melting of the glaciers is one of the clearest indicators that global warming is happening right now," Trueba said.
Researchers from the universities of Cantabria, Madrid and Valladolid conducted "the first global study" into thawing in the three mountainous areas in Spain: the Pyrenees on the border with France, the Picos in the north-west and Sierra Nevada in the south, the statement said.
"Between 1880 and 1980, at least 94 glaciers melted in the Iberian peninsula. Another 17 disappeared from the 1980s to the present day," the SNIC website said.
Now there are only 21 glaciers in all of the Pyrenees -- 10 on the Spanish side and 11 on the French side of the border. The glaciers cover a total area of 4.5 square kilometres (1.7 square miles).
"From 1990 to today, our calculations show this rapid thawing caused the smallest glaciers to completely disappear whereas the surface area of the larger glaciers was reduced by 50 to 60 percent," the statement said.
Europe's most southerly glacier which used to be in the Sierra Nevada disappeared at the start of the 20th century, while the glaciers in the Picos mountains have also vanished.
All glaciers in Spain were formed during a "mini ice age" which lasted from 1300 to 1860. The largest expansion of glaciers came between 1645 and 1710.
The Spanish researchers also found that the melting of the Pyrenees glaciers is not a new phenomenon. Thawing of the smaller glaciers in this area was detected between 1750 and the start of the 19th century.
