Study Finds Warming in High Mountains

Ancient ice drilled from deep inside a glacier shows that the past century has been the hottest period in 1,000 years in the Himalaya Mountains.

Researchers said the new finding is yet another indication the Earth is warming, and supports other studies that show a rapid melting of mountain ice fields is under way on three continents.

“We think this is alarming,” says Ellen Mosley-Thompson of Ohio State University, the co-author of a study appearing today in the journal Science.

Highest, Most Remote Record

Mosley-Thompson is a member of a team, led by Lonnie G. Thompson of Ohio State, that has analyzed ice cores from some of the most remote mountains in the world. The new cores, cylindrical specimens of ice, came from a glacier more than 20,000 feet high in the Himalayas.

“This is the highest climate record ever retrieved,” Thompson said in a statement. “It clearly shows a serious warming during the late 20th century, one that was caused, at least in part, by human activity.”

Herman Zimmerman, director of the National Science Foundation’s earth sciences division, said the new studies “leave little doubt that the Earth is warming and that all characteristics of our climate can change rapidly.”

“This is something that needs to be taken quite seriously by all the peoples of the world,” Zimmerman said. The NSF sponsored the 1997 expedition that extracted the Himalayan ice cores.

Mosley-Thompson said the ice cores record chemical clues of the climatic conditions that existed when the ice was deposited.

The most recent core, from the Dasuopu Glacier on the flank of the 26,293-foot Mt. Xixabangma, included ice that was laid down more than 12,000 years ago.

Warmest Century in 900 Years

An analysis of the Dasuopu ice deposited during the last 1,000 years shows a dramatic trend of warming, Mosley-Thompson said.

“The last century has been warmer than the previous nine centuries,” Mosley-Thompson said, while the last decade has been the warmest period of all.