IT'S NOT JUST THE POLAR BEARS ANYMORE.

Experts: global warming killing off Alaskan walruses


Federal experts studying global warming in Alaska are reporting walrus are dying by the thousands every year and they say there's only so much they can do about it.

A walrus expert [a WHAT] for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says dwindling sea ice has led to the deaths of 3,000 to 4,000 walrus last year on the Russian side of the sea that touches Alaska and Russia. She says federal authorities can restrict hunters, ship traffic and offshore oil drilling but they can't "make ice cubes."

A Russian expert says the loss of the same number of walrus this year could be disastrous.

Authorities also say the loss of sea ice will force them to decide within weeks weather to list polar bears as "threatened" under the federal Endangered Species Act.

Global warming causing China's glaciers to melt quickly

BEIJING (AFP) — Global warming has caused some of China's glaciers -- a source for many of Asia's greatest rivers -- to have melted by more than 18 percent over the past five years, state media reported Friday.

A survey of nearly 20,000 square kilometres (8,000 square miles) of China's glaciers showed they were on average 7.4 percent smaller than five years ago, Caijing magazine said, citing a government-funded survey.

A glacier along the upper reaches of the Brahmaputra River on the Tibetan plateau had shrunk by more than 18 percent, the survey found.

Two other glacial areas in China's far northwest Xinjiang region had also melted by more than 18 percent.

"Global warming is causing grave loss to glaciers and it has become a burning need to monitor changes of glacial reserves," the researchers from the China Academy of Sciences said as they released their findings.

China's glaciers, in the west of the country, feed many of Asia's greatest rivers, including the Yangtze, Mekong, Yellow and Ganges, as well as the Brahmaputra.
[AN ASIDE: LISTEN TO THE GANGES SERIES FROM WEEKEND EDITION. FUCKING GREAT.]

In the past four decades, China's glaciers shrank by 3,248 square kilometres, or 5.5 percent since the 1960s, according to previous studies published in the state-run press.

One of China's top glaciologists, Yao Tangdong, warned last year of an "ecological catastrophe" in Tibet because of global warming.

He said most glaciers in the region could melt away by 2100.