Global Warming Sign: It Took 25 Years to Melt 1,600 Years of Ice in the Andes

According to a report in the New York Times, it took merely 25 years to melt 1,600 years of ice in the Andes, an alarming sign of global warming.

Climate change and global warming have been top priority for all countries around the globe. In an article by The New York Times, scientists reported Thursday that it took merely 25 years of melt 1,600 years of ice in the Peruvian Andes, a big sign of global warming.

However, there also seems to be a bright side to this melting snow. It has resulted in the uncovering of plants that were locked in a deep freeze when the glacier advanced many thousands of years ago.

Scientists were able to use an unusually precise method of determining the history of the ice sheet's margins by dating these newly uncovered plants with the help of a radioactive form of carbon in the plant tissues.

Global warming, which scientists say is being caused primarily by the human release of greenhouse gases, is having its largest effects at high altitudes. Sitting at high elevation in the tropics, the Quelccaya ice cap appears to be extremely sensitive to the temperature changes, several scientists said.

"It may not go very quickly because there's so much ice, but we might have already locked into a situation where we are committed to losing that ice," said Mathias Vuille, a climate scientist at the State University at Albany in New York.

The rapid melting of snow in the Andes is a growing concern as this ice acts as a source of water for the people of the region during the dry season. If the ice melts throughout the year, there may not be much left to help the people during the dry season.

Douglas R. Hardy, a University of Massachusetts researcher who works in the region, said, "How much time do we have before 50 percent of Lima's or La Paz's water resources are gone?"