Third of glaciers atop Turkey's Mount Ararat melted since 1976
Monday, September 6, 2010
İPEK EMEKSİZ
ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News
The glaciers atop Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey are endangered by climate change, shrinking 30 percent between 1976 and 2008, an expert studying the effects of global warming on the mountain has said.
"We examined the glaciers on Mount Ararat using satellite views. While [they covered an area of] 8 kilometers in 1976, this had diminished to 5.6 kilometers in 2008 as a result of climate change," Akif Sarıkaya, an expert studying change in Mount Ararat's glaciers, told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review on Monday.
Sarıkaya, who recently completed his research at Nebraska University, added that the 0.03 degrees Celsius annual rise in temperatures and a lack of rain were among the likely factors affecting the situation. According to the researcher, glacial fields on Mt. Ararat shrank 30 percent over the 30 years measured.
The researcher's work indicates that the speed of the glaciers' recession is 0.07 kilometers a year, amounting to an area of seven hectares.
Though the effects of glacial melt will be smaller than observed in other places, such as the Himalayas, the melting water will reveal chunks of rock and contribute to landslides such as had been experienced in the past, Sarıkaya said.
"An earthquake occurred in the Cehennem Valley [near Mount Ararat] in 1840 and caused a huge glacier to break off. It damaged the village and the monastery located below," Sarıkaya said. "Maybe similar effects could be encountered, but [they will likely not be] catastrophic."
Alaattin Karaca, head of the Turkey Mountain Federation, or TDF, alerted authorities to the situation after a visit to the area Aug. 30. He agreed with Sarıkaya that the 700 meters of glaciers on top of Mount Ararat have begun melting into glacial rivers due to the influence of climate change.
Glaciers between the altitude of 4,500 and 5,137 meters are melting the most rapidly, Karaca said.
In the next phase of his research project, Sarıkaya plans to examine the climate conditions from 20,000 years ago by drilling into air bubbles in the glaciers. Though he said he would not be looking into the possibility, he said the glacial melt might help settle the question of whether the Biblical Noah's Ark is located on Mount Ararat.
"The mountain has historical significance as Noah's Ark is thought to be located there. With the glaciers' melt, it might be unveiled," Sarıkaya said.
Environmental groups said people need to make changes to their lifestyles in order to create fewer greenhouse-gas emissions, which contribute to global warming and thus to the melting of glaciers on Mount Ararat.
The melting experienced on the mountain was to be expected because similar patterns were observed in the Cudi Mountains located in the southeastern province of Şırnak, Hilal Atıcı, from the Istanbul branch of the environmental organization Greenpeace, told the Daily News.
"The melting of glaciers is an omen. As floods have been already experienced in the region, our government should prepare plans regarding climate change more seriously," Atıcı said.
"There is nothing we can do specifically. What needs to be done is that people should start discussing their lifestyles," Güven Eken, the head of the Doğa (Nature) Association in Istanbul, told the Daily News, expressing pessimism about the the climate change meeting that will be held in Mexico in December.
"The discussion only starts from the reduction of carbon emissions, which is wrong," Eken, explaining that such reductions are not a solution to global warming without people also reducing their consumption levels.
"Turkish citizens' average consumption levels would require 1.7 worlds," Eken said.
The Doğa Association head also criticized the ongoing construction of hydroelectric power plants in the country, saying they are not a solution to the environmental impacts of producing energy because they will damage the climate system by drying the riverbeds.
"People should lobby and produce common projects. It is not possible to come up with technical solutions to these kinds of issues," Eken said.
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