From the Inbox - Just $49,000 needed to run new ad against wolf hunts

We’re almost there! Help put us over the stop so we can run this urgent wolf-saving ad in The New York Times In just one day we raised $51,000 of the $100,000 needed to run this ad in the Times -- where it will help build massive public pressure to prevent the next wolf hunts. Please donate now to help run the ad and save the wild wolves of the Northern Rockies. We're so close to being able to run our hard-hitting new ad in The New York Times -- a potentially life-saving ad that could help restore vital protections to gray wolves now being hunted down and killed in the Northern Rockies. Since just yesterday morning we've raised almost $51,000! We need only $49,000 more to run this powerful ad that can alert millions of Americans to this devastating attack on wildlife. Please, read the full ad now and see why thousands of NRDC supporters have already made a gift to help run it -- and why YOU should, too. The slaughter of hundreds of wolves has already begun. In Idaho, 72 wolves have been gunned down in the hunt. In Montana, part of Yellowstone's Cottonwood wolf pack was shot and killed right outside the boundary of the national park. Over the next year, more than 500 wolves could be shot to death by hunters and government agents ...and the wolf population in the region could be reduced by a staggering 40 percent! Please, help us raise the last $49,000 we need to run our new ad immediately! Your donation could be the one that puts us over the top -- and puts this important new ad in front of millions of Americans. Click here to read the full text of the ad -- and help us run it now. I believe that when Americans learn about this open season on wolves, they'll want to make sure it never happens again. But they won't know unless we tell them. Our new ad is the best way to get the word out and ratchet up pressure on Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. He can restore protections to wolves with a stroke of his pen and prevent future hunts from taking place. It's urgent that we act now. If 980 NRDC supporters like you chip in just $50 each, we can be in The New York Times within days -- producing a massive public outcry that will begin almost immediately! Please put us over the top right now -- and help run the ad that can save wolves from slaughter. Sincerely, Frances Beinecke President Natural Resources Defense Council

Climate change ‘will put endangered monkeys at further risk’

Several endangered species of monkey are likely to be pushed further towards extinction by the effects of climate change, research has suggested.

At least four primates from South America that appear on the international Red List of endangered species are adversely affected by climate phenomena that are predicted to worsen as the world warms, scientists have found.

The muriqui (right), the Colombian red howler monkey, the woolly monkey and Geoffroy’s spider monkey, have all declined in population either during or soon after recent El Niño events, according to a study from a team at Pennsylvania State University.

Many scientists expect El Niño events, in which abnormally warm ocean temperatures in the southern hemisphere affect the climate, to become stronger or more frequent over the next century.

This could create fresh pressures on species that are already under threat. The muriqi and Geoffroy’s spider monkey (left) are officially endangered, while the woolly monkey has vulnerable status and the Colombian red howler is classified as declining but of least concern.

Ruscena Wiederholt and Eric Post, of Pennsylvania State University, who conducted the study, said that it highlighted the need for more research into how rising temperatures might affect the ateline primate family, to which all four species belong, and other endangered primates.

They said that their findings were particularly concerning because El Niño was shown to have a negative impact on all four species, even though they were native to different parts of South America. (Right: red howler monkey)

“Our results indicate that global climate change and increased El Niño events could pose a serious threat to ateline primates,” they wrote in the journal Biology Letters.

“Given that the status of many primate species is already precarious, in the face of continued global change, further studies to quantify the effects of climate and environmental variability on primate species are needed.”

Dr Post said: “El Niño events are expected to increase in frequency with global warming. This study suggests that the consequences of such intensification of the El Niño Southern Oscillation could be devastating for several species of New World monkeys.”

In the study, the scientists examined abundance trends collected by other research groups for four populations of ateline primates: muriquis from Minas Gerais in Brazil, Colombian red howlers from Guarico State in Venezuela, woolly monkeys from Meta in Colombia (left) and Geoffroy’s spider monkeys from Barro Colorado Island in Colombia.

All four species live in social groups and spend most of their time in the trees of tropical forests. Spider and woolly monkeys mainly eat fruit, howlers predominantly eat leaves, while muriquis eat both.

The researchers then investigated how monkey numbers in each population varied from year to year, and compared these with El Niño events. They also used detailed ecological data from Barro Colorado Island, the spider monkeys’ habitat (monkey at right), to track how fruit and leaf abundance varied with the climate.

The results showed that all four monkey species were affected by the El Niño climate cycle. The leaf-eating howler monkeys declined in the year of El Niño events, while those that ate fruit declined in the following year.

Dr Post said that further research would be needed to establish how the El Niño Southern Oscillation and climate change would affect many endangered species.

“Long-term studies like those we derived data from are incredibly valuable for illuminating effects of global warming,” he said. “Unfortunately such studies are also incredibly rare. We hope our results bring attention to the importance of maintaining long-term monitoring efforts.”

Source:
Times Online, "Climate change ‘will put endangered monkeys at further risk’", accessed October 29, 2009

World's tigers seen facing potential extinction

Tigers could become extinct in the wild in two decades unless the world ramps up conservation efforts to halt the decline in their population, wildlife experts said on Wednesday.

Barely 3,500 tigers are estimated to be roaming in the wild in 12 Asian countries and Russia compared with about 100,000 a century ago, experts and conservationists said.

Tigers are being illegally killed for their body parts and Asia is a hotspot for the illegal wildlife trade which the international police organization Interpol estimates may be worth more than $20 billion a year.

Skins sell as rugs and cloaks on the black market, where a skin can fetch up to $20,000 in countries like China.

Habitat destruction and depletion of prey base were other perils facing the "Asian heritage", conservationists said.

"A business as usual approach in tiger conservation will doom the tiger population in the next 15 to 20 years," Mahendra Shrestha, program director of the Washington-based Save the Tiger Fund told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference on tiger conservation.

He said law enforcement, patrols to stop poaching and the preservation of remaining habitat would improve the situation.

"There is hope. We can do it. It is not rocket science. It does not require a lot of new activities," Shrestha said.

"But there has to be strong political will to conserve tigers and also strong global international support for the activities of the tiger range countries."

Tigers still roam terrain in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam. (See left)

John Seidensticker, chief scientist at the Smithsonian National Zoo's Conservation Ecology Center, said tiger habitat had declined by 40 percent in the last decade due to destruction of forests.

"Our challenge is to make landscapes with tigers alive worth more than landscapes where tigers have been killed," Seidensticker said. "I think we have a decade from where we will slip from being caretakers to undertakers."

Source:
Reuters, "World's tigers seen facing potential extinction", accessed October 29, 2009

From the Inbox - Meet Me at the Wall

Dear Friend, When a clean energy economy finally becomes a reality in America, people will look back to the day that together, you and I launched The Repower America Wall. The Wall is a place where literally thousands and thousands of people committed to a revolutionary new energy future for our nation and the world are coming together -- to express our hopes, share our resolve, and step up to a leadership role in building a grassroots movement for change like nothing America has ever seen. It's an opportunity for you to be part of the climate movement in a new way, in a way that takes us beyond ourselves. By asking people from all over the country to share their thoughts and images on the Wall, we are fueling a campaign that brings together the power of national media with the strength and connection of on-the-ground organizing in a way that no one has ever done before. Your voice, and the voices of your friends, neighbors and colleagues, will become the language of our campaign on TV, in print, on billboards, online, and in brand new ways that you will help us invent as we create the Wall. We know that the political will to transition America to a clean energy economy already exists. You are part of it. But now we must make sure our leaders know it too. The Wall will become our collective voice and thus transform the debate into action. It's an ambitious strategy -- and it has to be. Nothing short of every one of us joined together is needed to overcome the resistance of the powerful special interests blocking our path to a clean energy future, settling for the dangerous status quo. But the time for politics is over. We have the power to force change in America. Together, you and I will use the Wall as the foundation for all of our activism in the days and weeks ahead. But first, I need you to meet me at the Wall. Share your voice on The Repower America Wall right now. The Wall is a revolutionary approach to standing up for what we believe in -- for what our country needs. It combines the power of your voice with the force of a multi-media campaign, to build a collective call for change so loud it's undeniable. The messages you and many thousands of others leave at the Wall are the tidal wave that will break on Washington, and put us on the path to victory. Our grassroots organizers in the states will use the Wall -- your Wall -- as proof that all of our friends and neighbors are as committed to clean energy as we are -- that we are joined together in this commitment. Content shared on the Wall will be used to create ads and other forms of communication that will go directly to your elected officials so that everywhere they look they will see the very people they represent, their constituents, calling for action now on clean energy -- in the local newspaper, on television, on billboards, on the radio, and on important local and national websites. There will be no place to hide. The Wall will be everywhere. When our opponents throw roadblocks in our way, we'll gather at the Wall to fight back. And when key decisions are at hand, we'll light up the Wall to let politicians who side with powerful interests against clean energy do so at their own peril. The time to demand a clean energy future for America is now. But we must stand together. Unless we do everything in our power to make our voices heard, the change we seek will not happen. Stand up and be a part of the generation that makes future generations proud -- join the movement and share your voice on The Repower America Wall today. This is just the beginning. Next week we will take this campaign to the airwaves with new Repower America national television ads featuring real messages from the Wall. By acting now to share your own personal message on the Repower America Wall, you can insure that you were there at the start. What you and I do today will determine everything about our country's future and the world our children will inherit. The time for action is right now and the cause deserves your best efforts. If you want to win and insure our clean energy future, I'll see you at the Wall. Together we can make this happen. Thank you, Al Gore

North Carolina Sea Levels Rising Three Times Faster Than In Previous 500 Years, Study Finds

An international team of environmental scientists led by the University of Pennsylvania has shown that sea-level rise, at least in North Carolina, is accelerating. Researchers found 20th-century sea-level rise to be three times higher than the rate of sea-level rise during the last 500 years. In addition, this jump appears to occur between 1879 and 1915, a time of industrial change that may provide a direct link to human-induced climate change.

The results appear in the current issue of the journal Geology.

The rate of relative sea-level rise, or RSLR, during the 20th century was 3 to 3.3 millimeters per year, higher than the usual rate of one per year. Furthermore, the acceleration appears consistent with other studies from the Atlantic coast, though the magnitude of the acceleration in North Carolina is larger than at sites farther north along the U.S. and Canadian Atlantic coast and may be indicative of a latitudinal trend related to the melting of the Greenland ice sheet.

Understanding the timing and magnitude of this possible acceleration in the rate of RSLR is critical for testing models of global climate change and for providing a context for 21st-century predictions.

"Tide gauge records are largely inadequate for accurately recognizing the onset of any acceleration of relative sea-level rise occurring before the 18th century, mainly because too few records exist as a comparison," Andrew Kemp, the paper's lead author, said. "Accurate estimates of sea-level rise in the pre-satellite era are needed to provide an appropriate context for 21st-century projections and to validate geophysical and climate models."

The research team studied two North Carolina salt marshes that form continuous accumulations of organic sediment, a natural archive that provides scientists with an accurate way to reconstruct relative sea levels using radiometric isotopes and stratigraphic age markers. The research provided a record of relative sea-level change since the year 1500 at the Sand Point and Tump Point salt marshes in the Albemarle-Pamlico estuarine system of North Carolina. The two marshes provided an ideal setting for producing high-resolution records because thick sequences of high marsh sediment are present and the estuarine system is microtidal, which reduces the vertical uncertainty of aleosea-level estimates. The study provides for the first time replicated sea-level reconstructions from two nearby sites.

In addition, comparison with 20th-century tide-gauge records validates the use of this approach and suggests that salt-marsh records with decadal and decimeter resolution can supplement tide-gauge records by extending record length and compensating for the strong spatial bias in the global distribution of longer instrumental records.

The study was funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Coastal Ocean Program, North Carolina Coastal Geology Cooperative Program, U.S. Geological Survey and National Science Foundation.

The study was conducted by Kemp and Benjamin P. Horton of the Sea-Level Research Laboratory at Penn, Stephen J. Culver and D. Reide Corbett of the Department of Geological Sciences at East Carolina University, Orson van de Plassche of Vrije Universiteit, W. Roland Gehrels of the University of Plymouth, Bruce C. Douglas of Florida International University and Andrew C. Parnell of University College Dublin.

Source:
Science Daily News, "North Carolina Sea Levels Rising Three Times Faster Than In Previous 500 Years, Study Finds", accessed October 29, 2009

To protect penguins, protect krill -marine experts

To protect penguins on the rapidly warming Antarctic peninsula, regulators need to ensure the survival of shrimp-like krill, the base of the food chain at the bottom of the world, marine experts said on Wednesday.

Whales and seals also depend on krill for food, the experts said in a telephone news briefing.

The numbers of Chinstrap (right) and Adelie penguins are declining steeply along the Antarctic peninsula, the part of the southern continent that stretches northward toward South America.

This is the most dramatically warming place on the planet and a location where huge miles-wide swarms of krill historically congregated, according to Wayne Trivelpiece, a penguin expert at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Krill (below left) need winter ice to survive but because of rising temperatures on the peninsula and in the waters that surround it, the area is ice-free for about four months each year, Trivelpiece said. Probably as a result, he said, winter stocks of krill have declined 80 percent in the past 20 years.

Prized as a component of fish food and nutritional supplements for people, krill are commercially harvested by factory trawlers, and the annual catch of this species rose in 2008 to 150,000 tons, from about 100,000 tons in 2007, according to the Pew Environmental Group.

To protect krill and the Antarctic sea creatures that depend on them, the Pew Environmental Group urged regulators now meeting in Tasmania to require fishing vessels to spread out geographically and over time in the southern ocean.

"This would prevent the concentration of the fisher from significantly reducing the amount of krill available for key predators, including whales, penguins and seals," the group said in a statement.

The Antarctic krill fishery is regulated by the Commission of the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, a group of 25 countries now meeting in Hobart, Tasmania.

The commission already has recognized that the current catch limits will not protect krill or its marine animal predators because the limits cover large swaths of ocean and do little to guard against concentrated krill fishing in small areas, the Pew statement said.

Source:
Reuters, "To protect penguins, protect krill -marine experts", accessed October 29, 2009

Elephant gives birth in tea garden

A herd of elephants stray into an Indian tea garden in search of food but in turn get a surprise as one gives birth.

While the baby birth in the tea garden in West Bengal was good news, it added to the danger of elephants attacking nearby villages and destroying their crops.

Therefore, the tribal villagers sought the help of forest officials to send the elephants back to their natural habitat in the Chapramari forest.

Experts have repeatedly warned that massive deforestation, poaching and people encroaching upon forest corridors have forced the elephants to move out of their natural habitats in search of food and water.

Source:
Reuters, "Elephant gives birth in tea garden", accessed October 27, 2009

Prepare for climate change, U.S. report warns W.House

As Congress considers curbs on carbon dioxide pollution, a U.S. report on Thursday urged the White House to prepare now for flooding and other natural disasters brought by global warming.

Federal agencies, working with Congress, state and local governments, should "develop a national strategic plan that will guide the nation's efforts to adapt to a changing climate," said a report by the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress.

John Stephenson, director of GAO's natural resources and environment office, told a congressional panel that higher concentrations of greenhouse gases may have significant effects, including threats to coastal areas from rising seas.

The GAO found there was no coordinated national approach for dealing with such problems.

While government has been slow to get ready, Stephenson said, "Natural disasters such as floods, heat waves, droughts or hurricanes raised public awareness of the costs of potential climate change impacts."

A survey of government officials, GAO said, found there was limited money for climate change planning, as agencies put higher priority on other concerns.

The GAO report came amid signs that more of the U.S. public is dismissing scientists' warnings of calamity.

According to a Pew Research Center poll released on Thursday, 35 percent of Americans say global warming is a very serious problem, down from 44 percent in April 2008.

Over the past year, the United States has been preoccupied with the severe economic downturn, which has put other concerns on a back burner. However, the Pew poll found that half of those surveyed favor setting limits on carbon emissions, even if they lead to higher prices.

REMEMBERING KATRINA

Representative Edward Markey, chairman of a House of Representatives global warming panel, recalled the government failures in responding to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans four years ago.

"Katrina foreshadows the consequences of climate change if we do not make the necessary preparations," he said.

Markey, a Democrat, was a leading force behind House legislation passed in June that would cut U.S. smokestack emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases by 17 percent by 2020, from 2005 levels.

A similar effort is facing tough opposition in the Senate and might not be voted on this year.

Representative James Sensenbrenner, the senior Republican on Markey's committee, said recent weather patterns show a global cooling, not warming.

He said Congress shouldn't waste its time with the "cap and trade" approach Democrats want to implement to lower emissions by allowing companies to trade a dwindling number of pollution permits.

Instead, Sensenbrenner said Congress should focus on "adaptation" steps.

Eric Schwaab, deputy secretary of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, said his state has taken such steps, including restoring natural shoreline buffers and limiting growth in new areas.

With an extensive coastline, Maryland could see a 2.7-foot to 3.4-foot rise in sea level by 2100, Schwaab said, causing a range of problems.

Source:
Reuters, "Prepare for climate Change, US report warns W. House", accessed 'October 27, 2009

Rare marine turtles get help

An intensive care clinic for marine turtles in French Polynesia is trying to help save the endangered species from extinction by nursing sick and injured animals back to health.

Lyndee Prickitt reports for Reuters:

Source:
Reuters, "Rare marine turtles get help", accessed October 27, 2009

Solar power in remote Andean village

Solar technology has taken root in the ancient village Misa Rumi, high in the Andean mountains. Video for report provided by Reuters.

Source:
Reuters, "Solar power in remote Andean village", accessed October 27, 2009

Spanish wetland facing destruction as farming starves it of water

Workers near a smoke plumefrom an underground fire in Las Tablas de Daimiel national park in Ciudad Real, Spain. Photograph: Mariano Cieza/EPA

The EU has begun an investigation into a unique Spanish wetland park that is being devastated by underground fires. Local officials have admitted that mismanaged water resources at the Tablas de Daimiel national park may never recover. "We are on the point of losing the Tablas de Daimiel," said Josep Puxeu, Spain's secretary for state for water.

With less than 1% of the park now covered by water, layers of underground peat have dried out and have started to spontaneously ignite. Park authorities are unable to locate the underground fires until they break to the surface.

The wetland park, near the city of Ciudad Real in the central Castilla-La Mancha region, is classified as a Unesco biosphere site and is one of just 14 national parks in Spain. A fresh fire was detected this week, confirming that the peat is still being destroyed.

EU inspectors will investigate how for decades Spanish authorities have allowed thousands of illegal wells to be dug near the park. Scientists say the wells have lowered an aquifer that once spilled water on to the surface of the wetlands but now lies more than 12 meters (40ft) below ground.

Despite repeated warnings over the past 20 years, people continue to pump water from the wells, using it to irrigate nearby farmland. "We are at a point of no return," the park director, Carlos Ruíz, warned in a recent report.

With the aquifer unable to feed the park, the wetlands are being kept alive artificially. Their survival now depends on water being pumped in from elsewhere.

Similar underground fires heralded the death 20 years ago of the upper reaches of the river Guadiana, which is meant to feed into the wetlands. Ruíz, who raised the alarm in El País newspaper last week, has since been banned from talking to journalists. The Guardian was sent away from the park offices last week.

The destruction of the peat reduces the park's ability to retain any water that reaches it in the future. Man-sized cracks in the soil have opened up in some areas, making the park dangerous to walk in.

"Daimiel was once a paradise, with thousands and thousands of birds," said Santos Cirujano, of Spain's Higher Scientific Research Council. "If they want to save it, they can, but that requires a will to conserve it."

Visitors to the park now find just a few lagoons, home to a handful of coots and egrets. Stilted walkways cross over baked earth and rowing boats lie stranded on the ground. Observation huts look out on endless stretches of dried out land.

Pepe Jimenéz, head of Spain's national parks, said the situation was reversible. "We are buying up land around the park and buying water rights too. The rate at which the aquifer is declining is slowing down but it will take time before it can provide water to the park."

Spain now has 10 weeks to explain how it plans to respond to the crisis, and the country could be punished with sizeable fines. The government has promised to pump water in from the Tagus river basin, but not until next year. And the last time that was attempted, 95% of the water was lost along the way. In a country where water is fought over bitterly, the decision has provoked anger from Tagus farmers.

Some scientists have predicted that Spain's thirsty agriculture will not survive in the next decade as aquifers become exhausted and global warming lessens rainfall. Last year, Barcelona was forced to import water in tankers.

Manuel Martín grows melons and giant pumpkins on a modest plot where the Guadiana river once sprang generously from the ground. Now the barren riverbed is pitted with cracks and subsidence holes. Half a dozen water mills remain, stranded along the banks. Yet overhead there are huge pivot sprinklers serving the cereal crops.

"The lagoon here used to be full all year round but I haven't seen water since 1985," Martín said. "Our grandparents managed to irrigate their fields without making the water disappear. They should ban those pivot sprinklers until it comes back."

Source:
The Guardian, "Spanish wetland facing destruction as farming starves it of water", accessed October 22, 2009

Obama plans big smart grid announcement

President Barack Obama will announce the largest investment of economic stimulus funds in clean energy during a visit to Florida, an Obama administration official said on Monday.

The announcement will involve the smart grid, which will help bring energy from clean domestic sources to consumers in 49 states and help build a strong and more reliable electricity grid, the official said.

Obama is to travel to Arcadia, Florida, on Tuesday to make the speech and take a tour of the DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center.

Separately, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden plans on Tuesday to visit a closed General Motors plant in Wilmington, Delaware, where he is expected to announce that it will be reopened for the building of plug-in hybrid electric cars.

The California-based venture capital firm Fisker Automotive Inc has reached a deal to buy the former GM assembly plant and plans to use it for the manufacture of the cars, according to a source familiar with the details of Biden's visit.

A White House statement on Biden's visit said he planned a major announcement about the assembly plant's future, but gave no other details. Delaware is Biden's home state.

Source:
Reuters, "Obama plans big smart grid announcement", accessed October 27, 2009

'Freezer plan' bid to save coral

The prospects of saving the world's coral reefs now appear so bleak that plans are being made to freeze samples to preserve them for the future.

A meeting in Denmark took evidence from researchers that most coral reefs will not survive even if tough regulations on greenhouse gases are put in place.

Scientists proposed storing samples of coral species in liquid nitrogen. That will allow them to be reintroduced to the seas in the future if global temperatures can be stabilized.

Legislators from 16 major economies have been meeting in the Danish capital, Copenhagen, to try to agree the way forward on climate change.
The meeting has been organized by the Global Legislators Organization for a Balanced Environment (Globe).

Losing the Fight

One of the issues they have been considering is what to do with coral reefs, which make up less than a quarter of 1% of the ocean's floor. Despite their small coverage, the reefs are a key source of food, income and coastal protection for around 500 million people worldwide.

At this meeting, politicians and scientists acknowledged that global emissions of carbon dioxide are rising so fast that we are losing the fight to save coral and the world must develop an alternative plan. Freezing samples for the future may be a necessary option.

''Well it's the last ditch effort to save biodiversity from the reefs which are extremely diverse systems," said Simon Harding from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL).

"It would take other work to try and reconstruct the reef so that you can start the process of building up a reef again," he said.

"That is something that needs to be looked at in detail, but we can definitely store the species and save them in that way."

According to recent research, one of the world's most important concentrations of coral - the so-called Coral Triangle in South East Asia - could be destroyed by climate change before the end of this century with significant impacts on food security and livelihoods.

Source:
BBC News, "'Freezer plan' bid to save coral", accessed October 27, 2009

Hydropower industry braces for glacier-free future

Standing on the Rhone glacier at the source of the Rhone river, glaciologist Andreas Bauder poses next to a 3-meter high pole sticking out of the ice, and gestures above his head. (Left)

"This is about the melt of one month," he says, as fellow scientists drill into the ice. "I'm about two meters tall."

From the Himalayas to the Andes, faster-melting glaciers spell short-term opportunities -- and long-term risks -- for hydroelectric power and the engineering and construction industries it drives.

The most widely used form of renewable energy globally, hydro meets more than half Switzerland's energy needs. As summers dry and glaciers that help drive turbines with meltwater recede, that share may eventually fall.

A study by Lausanne's EPFL technical university forecast a decline to 46 percent by 2035 for hydro from around 60 percent now as precipitation declines and total energy use increases.

In the same way as the Himalayas are "Asia's water-tower," Switzerland is the source of Europe's biggest rivers, supporting agriculture and waterways, and cooling nuclear power stations.

Water trickles down white-blue crevasses and ice cracks and creaks as Bauder, who for Zurich technical university spends about 20 to 30 days a year working on Swiss glaciers, explains that most of the mighty Rhone glacier will be gone by the end of the century.

"Nature can adjust to the circumstances," he said. "It's just people who are much more fragile about living conditions." More than a billion people worldwide live in river basins fed by glacier or snowmelt.

Glaciers have been retreating dramatically since the end of the Little Ice Age in the 19th century, particularly in the Himalayas where they feed rivers including the Mekong and Yangtze and ensure water and power for fast-growing economies.

A lack of water for hydropower is already "critical" in Bolivia, Peru, Colombia and Ecuador, according to the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which also sees risks to water supplies to southern California from the loss of the Sierra Nevada and Colorado River basin snowpack.

In Europe, 20 percent of electricity comes from hydro-generating potential that is projected to decrease by the 2070s, falling sharpest in the Mediterranean.

Bauder pointed to an area of stony ground and small lakes beyond the end of Rhone glacier ice field: "When I was a kid, I remember that the glacier was much larger. The glacier tongue was still reaching over this rocky area."

WINNERS AND LOSERS

The Swiss hydroelectric industry is part-funding Bauder's research, to help it take a long view on new projects in an industry where licenses often run for up to a century.

Other risks researchers have identified include sudden floods from swollen glacial lakes. Demand for more pumping technology and dams is one response in countries which can afford them.

Experts stress that forecasts so far ahead are highly uncertain, particularly in predicting precipitation, and note that some regions may even benefit.

"With climate change there will be some areas in the world with more precipitation year round," said Petra Doell, a professor of hydrology at the University of Frankfurt and a member of the U.N. climate panel.

"That will mean more hydropower generation even if glaciers melt."

For example Norway, which generates almost 100 percent of its power from hydroelectricity, is likely to get more rain and snow because of climate change even as glaciers retreat.

But if glaciers do disappear, one main impact will be lower river flows in dry seasons -- when irrigation is often needed for crops. That would particularly threaten people in the world's biggest rice-growers, China and India.

Nations with high power demand in dry seasons could suffer from lower flows, but Doell said hydropower reservoirs could be used to mute the overall impacts of melting glaciers downstream.

"A reservoir helps to broaden the availability of water throughout the year," she said. "But there are few dams in south-east Asia, where the impacts of melting glaciers will be most severe."

WAYS TO STORE WATER

From the Swiss perspective, the Lausanne study forecasts run-off from the Swiss Alps will fall by 7 percent to 2049, as glaciers recede and precipitation rises by 6 percent in winter and drops by 8 percent in summer.

These wetter winters and drier summers may force changes in the way Switzerland stores and moves water.

In the past, the country used to make sure its storage lakes were full in September to provide hydropower for heating as energy demand peaked in winter, while they were empty in April, ready to be replenished by melting snow and ice.

"Since the electricity market was liberalized and listed companies involved, which are more oriented to earning money and delivering energy at the best price, it has been more difficult to fill the lakes in the winter," said Bruno Schaedler, a hydrologist from Bern University.

The melting glaciers will be a bonus in the short term, but the hydro industry will have to manage water more efficiently: "When we don't have the reserves of the glaciers, we will need more storage dams," said Joerg Aeberhard, head of hydraulic production at Swiss energy company Alpiq.

Swiss hydropower is not completely dependent on glaciers, he stressed: melting snow is more important and provides run-off with less sediment. "We are worried about climate change, but I am more worried as a citizen than as a generator of hydroelectric power."

By the end of the century, the Lausanne study forecasts run-off will have fallen by 17 percent as the glaciers will have virtually disappeared.

About 55 percent of the 100 cubic km of water stored in Switzerland's glaciers at the end of the last mini Ice Age in 1850 was gone by 2006. Total water stored in the glaciers of the European Alps as a whole had fallen two-thirds to 61 cubic km in 2006.

Bern University hydrologist Schaedler said Switzerland would probably need to make more use of pumped storage power stations -- which pump water into high reservoirs when demand is low, to release the water as demand peaks -- to manage changing flows in run-off and help the rest of Europe cope with more unpredictable precipitation.

While winters may be wetter and summers drier, he said the fact that the Alps attract three times heavier rainfall than the average for the rest of Europe suggests the country will still be relatively comfortable.

"The role of Switzerland as a water tower will become more important for the rest of Europe with climate change and changing precipitation," Schaedler said.

Source:
Reuters, "Hydropower industry braces for glacier-free future", accessed October 21, 2009