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from Photographers Blog:
Walking the glacier
By Lisi Niesner
Usually I am absolutely not a fan of places where a mass of tourists assemble. I hate standing in line, dislike crowded sights, do not endure guides, prefer to eat meals characteristic of the country I'm visiting and I particularly cannot stand how functional tourists dress in their newly bought outdoor clothing – even if it is not necessary at all. That wind and water repellent jacket, those pants with a cooling fiber effect and, of course, the super soft sneaker shoes replacing the aerated sandals.
However, it has become a routine of mine to visit my relatives who live in the Zillertal valley but I had never visited the tourist attractions in the area. The Zillertal valley, located in the western Alps in the Austrian province of Tyrol, is well known for their “hardcore” tourism that has been operating for years.
It has never been easier to reach the top of a mountain or a glacier without shedding a drop of sweat. The expenses amount to around 30 euros and after a 30 minute ride on the cable car you will get access to a stunning view! On clear days you can look infinitely far.
There I was, right next to the cable car station atop the Gefrorene Wand summit at 3288 meters (10787 feet) above sea level, in a crowd of tourists acting like they were at a playground surrounded by this inhospitable glacier area. Children were sliding down a slope on inflatable tires, sportsmen put on their skis and some tourists took off their clothes to get the ultimate vacation snapshot from the glacier which they would likely show off proudly when they returned home. The impression I got was that it was like Disneyland in a winter wonder land. Not that I was surprised, but it still made me feel uncomfortable observing the crowds behavior (and how they were dressed for temperatures below 0°C) on a glacier as they stumbled over the snow as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
from FaithWorld:
Climatic cracks of doom threaten monastic fortress in Bhutan
Punakha Dzong monastic fortress in Bhutan, 28 June 2009/Singye Wangchuk
For centuries the Punakha Dzong monastic fortress in Bhutan's Himalayas has sheltered ancient Buddhist relics and scriptures from earthquakes, fires and Tibetan invasions. Now the lamas here may have met their match -- global warming.
At least 53 million cubic metres of glacier melt is threatening to break the banks of a lake upstream in the Himalayan peaks and spark a "mountain tsunami" in Punakha valley.
from Environment Forum:
Holy water!
Are the residents of Fiesch and Fischertal in Switzerland particularly pious, desperate or both? I wonder after learning that villagers there want Pope Benedict's blessing to stop the melting of Europe's longest glacier. That, after hundreds of years of praying for it to stop growing. Researchers predict winter temperatures in the Swiss Alps will rise by 1.8 degrees Celsius in winter and 2.7 degrees Celsius in the summer by 2050.
You can track the fate of the Aletsch glacier here, but don't expect to see a repeat of Spencer Tunick's 2007 naked photoshoot.
from Environment Forum:
Cracking views of Antarctic icebergs
As a view out of your home it's hard to match -- a constantly changing vista of icebergs just outside the British Antarctic Survey's Rothera research station.
Every day the winds and tides on the Antarctic Peninsula shift them around -- some break up abruptly with a loud splash while many simply slowly grind into ice cubes against the shore and disappear. I've tried to take a picture every day from the main balcony here (there's a metal mast on the right hand side of each photo).
from Environment Forum:
Yellow submarine to explore Antarctic glaciers
A yellow robot submarine will dive under an ice shelf in Antarctica to seek clues to world ocean level rises in one of the most inaccessible places on earth, reports our environment correspondent Alister Doyle. You can see his story here.
The 7-meter (22 ft) submarine, to be launched from a U.S. research vessel, will probe the underside of the ice at the end of the Pine Island glacier, which is moving faster than any other in Antarctica and already brings more water to the oceans than Europe's Rhine River.
