23 March 2005Independent Online
Vienna - Austrian glacier ski regions are covering parts of their precious ice with sheets of plastic foil during the summer months in an effort to counter increased melting levels causing by rising global temperatures.What might first appear a whim has deadly serious undertones. Global warming is rapidly encroaching on the one-time regions of "eternal snow" located at 2 500 metres or higher.Melting glaciers are disastrous to the environment. The whole water content of a mountain range may be lost with inestimable effects on plant and animal life. Experts predict that by the year 2050, two-thirds of all Alpine glaciers will be gone.A desperate situation calls for desperate measures. "The first test with us was last year - only a small area," said manager of Stubai Glacier Mountain Railways in Tyrol, Sepp Rauter, in the newspaper Salzburger Nachrichten.
In the experiment, 2 000 square metres of glacier ice were covered with the plastic foil over the summer. There was considerable success. "We were able to keep two metres of snow," said Rauter.The points chosen for the foil were at lift supports. He explained that they were of crucial importance, as ice and snow melting around them could change the whole makeup of a ski area.Due to the success in 2004, the sheets are to be rolled out at Stubai again, and also at the Tyrolean glacier resorts of Oetztal and Pitztal, Rauter said. The exercise will be scientifically monitored by the Innsbruck Institute of Meteorology and Geophysics, who will also be testing the suitability of various materials to the job.A Swiss glacier expert, Martin Funk, was quoted by media as saying his country was also adopting the Austrian idea. "The foil reflects almost all incident radiation. That strongly reduces the melting procedure," he said.However, the foil is only suitable for small areas, as otherwise the process of covering the glaciers becomes technically difficult and expensive. One area in Switzerland starting in May would be the mountain railways at the resort of Andermatt. It would cost about €64 000 (about R500 000) to cover 3 000 square metres.Each summer's heat does increasing damage to the fragile high Alpine world. But the record summer of 2003 was particularly harmful.Experts cite the case of Austria's biggest glacier, the "Pasterze", located at the foot of the country's highest mountain, the 3 800-metre Grossglockner.In 2003 alone, the Pasterze lost 30 metres in length, nearly twice the annual average, and 6,5 metres in thickness. Geologists calculated that 24 million cubic metres of water melted from the ice and flowed down the mountain.Greenpeace scientists have issued dire warnings. "The glaciers are water-holders. If the earth warms up, less water is trapped in the form of ice. The consequences are more frequent flooding disasters and landslides."The environmentalists blame global warming on governments and multinational corporations polluting the atmosphere with clouds of "greenhouse gases" such as carbon dioxide.Greenpeace climate specialist Erwin Mayer says that since the Rio de Janeiro environmental summit of 1992, world emissions of carbon dioxide have gone up by 11 percent. About 40 percent of the 23 billion tons of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere each year come from burning oil.Meyer blames huge multinationals such as Esso, Shell and BP, which between them have a market share in world oil production of more than 50 percent. - Sapa-dpa
