Macabre Effect Of Global Warming: Dead Bodies Emerging From Ice On Mount Everest

Because glaciers are melting, dead bodies of people who passed away
in climbing expeditions have been emerging from the glacier at this
high elevation camp on Mount Everest. Photo via BBC by
Doma Sherpa

Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain, is a deadly place.

More than 4,800 have climbed to the top of Mount Everest. Nearly 300 other people died trying, according to the BBC.

In most cases, the people who died were left there, because of the obvious danger of bringing the deceased off the mountain. From there, snow and ice would entombed the fatalities forever.

Or so we thought. As the BBC reports: 

"Because of global warming, the ice sheet and the glaciers are fast melting and the dead bodies that remained buried all these years are now becomeing exposed, said Ang Tshering Sherpa, former president of Nepal Mountaineering Association."

Another person who is a liason officer on Everest said he has personally retrieved about 10 bodies in recent years from different spots on the mountain and more are emerging lately.

While most of the bodies are appearing because of glacial melting on Everest, some are emerging because of natural movements in the Khumbu Glacier, which sometimes exposes long-deceased people.

Climate change is actually creating far bigger risks in the Himalayas than the macabre exposure of dead mountaineers on Mount Everest.  Melting glaciers over time threaten the water supply of perhaps a tenth or more of the world's population.

According to National Geographic:

"The Hindu Kush Himalaya encompass hundreds of the world's most iconic mountains, hold over 30,000 square miles of glacier ice - more than anywhere else in the world besides the poles - and sustain 240 million people in the peaks and valleys. The mountain ranges also cradle the headwaters of rivers like the Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra that provide water to billions in the lowlands downstream."

Most of the snow in the highest elevations in much of the Himalayas actually comes during the summer. At that time of year, the monsoons that sometimes cause flooding in the low elevations to the south sneak up to the Himalayas, creating big summer snowstorms.

However, in general, the monsoons have been weakening, meaning less snow falls. That downward trend in snowfall is expected to continue with climate change, so snowfall in the high mountains will continue to decrease, says National Geographic.

Less snowfall eventually means less ice for the glaciers. And global warming threatens to increase melting of those glaciers. A double whammy.

Eventually, the fear is the glaciers will get so small that they'll reduce the amount of water feeding into rivers. These are the rivers that those billions of people rely upon.

On top of all that bad news, there's a shorter term danger, according to the National Geographic article.

Melting glaciers feed into glacial lakes. Rocks, dirt and debris typically hold these lakes back. If melting increases, the lakes will overwhelm these natural dams, sending walls of water into populated areas below.

All this is just another local, and very serious end result of climate change. I'm sure scientists will keep coming up with other reasons why this is all bad. I can't wait to find out more

Vermont Spring Flood Threat? Well..... Maybe

In Vermont, the Burlington Free Press put out an Associated Press article last week discussing what might be a rising chances of spring floods in the Green Mountain State this spring.

Severe flooding on the Lamoille River near Cambridge, Vt.
after torrential thunderstorms and rapid snowmelt in April, 2011.  

The headline was "Vermont Snows Prompt Worries Of Spring Flooding"

That's true, but at this point, it seems that chances are spring flooding won't be extreme, unless some incredibly extreme weather comes into the picture in the next few weeks

It's true the snowpack has increased in recent weeks and rivers are very, very frozen, two factors that could contribute to floods.

However, I don't expect a big spring flood disaster like the state got in 2011 unless something unprecedented happens.

The Burlington Free Press/AP article did not say we would get a flood like 2011, but understandably the piece brought the idea up. People are still spooked by that disaster, and the even-worse Tropical Storm Irene floods three or four months later in 2011.

The spring of 2011 was a special case.  It really was a worst case scenario.

The late winter snow cover that year was among the deepest ever seen in Vermont. Many feet of snow covered the ground in the beginning of March, especially in the mountains.

Worse, that 2011 snow cover had an unusually high water content. That meant there was the potential for massive amount of water to be released when the spring thaws came.

Strong winds over a badly flooded Lake Champlain
send waves crashing onto a North Hero, Vermont
highway in April, 2011.  

And that's what happened. Still, the flooding wouldn't have been too bad if the spring of 2011 was relatively dry.  Instead, it was easily the wettest spring on record in Vermont.

Early on, in April, torrential rainstorms caused river, street and basement flooding.  A storm that caused the worst tornado outbreak in United States history in late April of that year sent record warmth and very uncommon, torrential thunderstorms  into Vermont, causing severe flooding in some rivers, especially in the Lamoille River Valley.

The huge volumes of water poured into Lake Champlain, and meanwhile, the torrential rains continued to pour down from the sky during May. The result was by far the worst flood on record in Lake Champlain.

The flood also lasted a long time, well into June, due to the repeateded heavy rain. Millions of dollars in damage hit homes, camps, roads and other properties near the lake in Vermont, New York and Quebec.

Needless to say, all those bad weather spells in spring, 2011 coming all at once is pretty much impossible to replicate.

So I don't expect anything nearly as bad in 2014 in Vermont or surrounding states.

Still, there are some things to watch for, which could cause some real flooding trouble as we head into the spring.

This Year: 

The biggest flood threat this year, at least in my mind, is ice jams. Some thaws in midwinter have left jumbles of broken ice piled up in some rivers, and those piles threaten to jam up again if higher water moves them.

Camps severely damaged by record flooding
along Lake Champlain in May, 2011.  

All the rivers have also re-frozen solidly in the face of February cold spells.

Far colder than normal weather this week will extend into March, so the river ice will continue thickening, spelling more and more potential for trouble once we get the spring thaw.

Thick ice chunks make more bigger, more solid ice jams than thin, breakable ice.

If we get ice jams, chances are they might form in fairly remote areas, so they won't be that much of a problem. So what if Farmer Bill's field goes under water for a couple days in late March?

But if the ice jams form near communities, we could have a real disaster, like the ice jam flood in Montpelier in 1991. Needless to say, the ice breakups in northern New England rivers are going to have to be watched carefully this spring.

In January, the snow pack in the mountains of northern New York, and in Vermont and New Hampshire were way, way below normal, which, had the trend continued would have greatly minimized the threat of spring flooding.

But the snow cover caught up in February and it's now near normal. The water content is pretty high in that snow, too, since last week's rainstorm largely soaked into the snow rather than melting most of it.

Still the amount of snow, and the amount of water in it, is much, much less than it was in 2011.

The longer we go into March without a good thaw, the greater the chance it will turn really warm later in the spring and melt the snow suddenly, which could cause some river flooding if we get a lot of rain.

The good news is this week, only light amounts of snow will add to the snowpack, so the potential water for floods won't increase markedly (Although there are some highly uncertain hints northern New England could get a pretty good sized snowstorm next week, which would definitely add to the snowpack)

Finally, there's frozen Lake Champlain. Water levels are a little above normal now in the lake, because of some winter rainstorms. The lake is mostly iced over, so water can't evaporate from the lake that much. Of course, evaporation only would have lowered water levels only a tiny bit.

Flood stage in the lake is 100 feet, and I think there's a pretty good chance the water in Lake Champlain will reach that height as the snow melts this spring. But that's still way different than 2011, when the water got up to 103 feet above sea level.

I can't imagine the lake remotely close to that height again this spring, unless the impossible happens and we get a lot more rain this spring than the record amounts in 2011.

The bottom line around Lake Champlain and surrounding areas:  Yeah, watch for spring flooding because there's about a normal chance that could happen. But don't panic over it. There's no reason to see signs of a watery apocalypse.

Elsewhere in the nation, places like the Upper Midwest, the Great Lakes and the rest of northern New England could be in for some flooding this spring, given deep snow cover in those areas.

As in Vermont, it depends on how much rain falls in the spring, and how fast it finally warms up.

Here's a video I took of the severe flooding on Lake Champlain, in Colchester, in May, 2011.