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Quelccaya
The Quelccaya Ice Cap (also known as Quenamari Ice Cap) is the second largest glaciated area in the tropics, after Coropuna. Located in the Cordillera Oriental section of the Andes mountains in Peru, the cap covers an area of with ice up to thick. It is surrounded by tall ice cliffs and a number of outlet glaciers, the largest of which is known as Qori Kalis Glacier; lakes, moraines, peat bogs and wetlands are also present. There is a rich flora and fauna, including birds that nest on the ice cap. Quelccaya is an important source of water, eventually melting and flowing into the Inambari and Vilcanota Rivers. A number of ice cores have been obtained from Quelccaya, including two from 1983 that were the first recovered outside of the polar regions. Past climate states have been reconstructed from data in these ice cores; these include evidence of the Little Ice Age, regional droughts and wet periods with historical significance and past and recent El Niño events. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Qori Kalis Glacier
The Qori Kalis Glacier is a tropical glacier located in the Cordillera Oriental section of the Andes mountains of Peru. It is one of the few tropical glaciers left in the world, and is the main outlet of the Quelccaya Ice Cap. This glacier has lost nearly half of its length since measurements began in 1963 by the Peruvian hydro-electric company Electroperú. Around 2007, the glacier had been retreating at a rate of 600 feet per year. From 1963 to 1978 it retreated at a rate of approximately 6 metres per year. Between 1991 and 2005, it has retreated at around 60 metres per year. It is the largest of all of the tongues of the Quelccaya Ice Cap, many of which are in retreat. Testing shows that the Qori Kalis Glacier advanced to its greatest length around 520 years ago and then began to retreat. It has advanced to small degrees from time to time since then. Lake Beginning in 1991, a proglacial lake In geology, a proglacial lake is a lake formed either by the damming action of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coropuna
Coropuna is a dormant compound volcano located in the Andes mountains of southeast-central Peru. The upper reaches of Coropuna consist of several perennially snowbound conical summits, lending it the name Nevado Coropuna in Spanish. The complex extends over an area of and its highest summit reaches an altitude of above sea level. This makes the Coropuna complex the third-highest of Peru. Its thick ice cap is the most extensive in Earth's tropical zone, with several outlet glaciers stretching out to lower altitudes. Below an elevation of , there are various vegetation belts which include trees, peat bogs, grasses and also agricultural areas and pastures. The Coropuna complex consists of several stratovolcanos. These are composed chiefly of ignimbrites and lava flows on a basement formed by Middle Miocene ignimbrites and lava flows. The Coropuna complex has been active for at least five million years, with the bulk of the current cone having been formed during the Quat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glacier
A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its Ablation#Glaciology, ablation over many years, often Century, centuries. It acquires distinguishing features, such as Crevasse, crevasses and Serac, seracs, as it slowly flows and deforms under stresses induced by its weight. As it moves, it abrades rock and debris from its substrate to create landforms such as cirques, moraines, or fjords. Although a glacier may flow into a body of water, it forms only on land and is distinct from the much thinner sea ice and lake ice that form on the surface of bodies of water. On Earth, 99% of glacial ice is contained within vast ice sheets (also known as "continental glaciers") in the polar regions, but glaciers may be found in mountain ranges on every continent other than the Australian mainland, including Oceania's high-latitude oceanic island countries such as New Zealand. Between lati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ice Cap
In glaciology, an ice cap is a mass of ice that covers less than of land area (usually covering a highland area). Larger ice masses covering more than are termed ice sheets. Description Ice caps are not constrained by topographical features (i.e., they will lie over the top of mountains). By contrast, ice masses of similar size that ''are'' constrained by topographical features are known as ice fields. The ''dome'' of an ice cap is usually centred on the highest point of a massif. Ice flows away from this high point (the ice divide) towards the ice cap's periphery. Ice caps have significant effects on the geomorphology of the area that they occupy. Plastic moulding, gouging and other glacial erosional features become present upon the glacier's retreat. Many lakes, such as the Great Lakes in North America, as well as numerous valleys have been formed by glacial action over hundreds of thousands of years. On Earth, there are about of total ice mass. The average temperature ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flood
A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrology and are of significant concern in agriculture, civil engineering and public health. Human changes to the environment often increase the intensity and frequency of flooding, for example land use changes such as deforestation and removal of wetlands, changes in waterway course or flood controls such as with levees, and larger environmental issues such as climate change and sea level rise. In particular climate change's increased rainfall and extreme weather events increases the severity of other causes for flooding, resulting in more intense floods and increased flood risk. Flooding may occur as an overflow of water from water bodies, such as a river, lake, or ocean, in which the water overtops or breaks levees, resulting ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Holocene
The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene together form the Quaternary period. The Holocene has been identified with the current warm period, known as MIS 1. It is considered by some to be an interglacial period within the Pleistocene Epoch, called the Flandrian interglacial.Oxford University Press – Why Geography Matters: More Than Ever (book) – "Holocene Humanity" section https://books.google.com/books?id=7P0_sWIcBNsC The Holocene corresponds with the rapid proliferation, growth and impacts of the human species worldwide, including all of its written history, technological revolutions, development of major civilizations, and overall significant transition towards urban living in the present. The human impact on modern-era Earth and its ecosystems may be considered of global si ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neoglacial
The neoglaciation ("renewed glaciation") describes the documented cooling trend in the Earth's climate during the Holocene, following the retreat of the Wisconsin glaciation, the most recent glacial period. Neoglaciation has followed the hypsithermal or Holocene Climatic Optimum, the warmest point in the Earth's climate during the current interglacial stage, excluding the global warming-induced temperature increase starting in the 20th century. The neoglaciation has no well-marked universal beginning: local conditions and ecological inertia affected the onset of detectably cooler (and wetter) conditions. Driven inexorably by the Milankovitch cycle, cooler summers in higher latitudes of North America, which would cease to completely melt the annual snowfall, were masked at first by the presence of the slowly disappearing continental ice sheets, which persisted long after the astronomically calculated moment of maximum summer warmth: "the neoglaciation can be said to have begun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Highstand
A raised shoreline is an ancient shoreline exposed above current water level. These landforms are formed by a relative change in sea level due to global sea level rise, isostatic rebound, and/or tectonic uplift. These surfaces are usually exposed above modern sea level when a heavily glaciated area experiences a glacial retreat, causing water levels to rise. This area will then experience post-glacial rebound, effectively raising the shoreline surface. Examples of raised shorelines can be found along the coasts of formerly glaciated areas in Ireland and Scotland, as well as in North America. Raised shorelines are exposed at various locations around the Puget Sound of Washington State. See also * Isostasy * Landform * Machair * Marine terrace * Parallel Roads of Glen Roy * Raised beach * Terrace (geology) * Wave-cut platform A wave-cut platform, shore platform, coastal bench, or wave-cut cliff is the narrow flat area often found at the base of a sea cliff or along the shor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Climate Change
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to Earth's climate. The current rise in global average temperature is more rapid than previous changes, and is primarily caused by humans burning fossil fuels. Fossil fuel use, deforestation, and some agricultural and industrial practices increase greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide and methane. Greenhouse gases absorb some of the heat that the Earth radiates after it warms from sunlight. Larger amounts of these gases trap more heat in Earth's lower atmosphere, causing global warming. Due to climate change, deserts are expanding, while heat waves and wildfires are becoming more common. Increased warming in the Arctic has contributed to melting permafrost, glacial retreat and sea ice loss. Higher temperatures are also causing m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cordillera Vilcanota
The Cordillera Vilcanota ( Spanish ''cordillera'': "mountain range", Aymara Willkan Uta or Willkanuta: "house of the sun") is a mountain range located in Peru southeast of Cusco, on the boundary between the regions of Cusco and Puno. It extends between 13°39' and 14°29'S and 70°31' and 71°20'W for about 80 km. It includes 469 glaciers. To the east the rivers San Gabán and Azángaro are the natural boundary which separates it from the Carabaya range. The La Raya range near the La Raya pass is sometimes included or listed separately. Toponyms Most of the names in the range originate from Quechua and Aymara. They used to be spelled according to a mainly Spanish-based orthography which is incompatible with the normalized spellings of these languages and Law 29735 which regulates the 'use, preservation, development, recovery, promotion and diffusion of the originary languages of Peru'. According to Article 20 of ''Decreto Supremo No 004-2016-MC'' (Supreme Decree) whic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Climate Model
Numerical climate models use quantitative methods to simulate the interactions of the important drivers of climate, including atmosphere, oceans, land surface and ice. They are used for a variety of purposes from study of the dynamics of the climate system to projections of future climate. Climate models may also be qualitative (i.e. not numerical) models and also narratives, largely descriptive, of possible futures. Quantitative climate models take account of incoming energy from the sun as short wave electromagnetic radiation, chiefly visible and short-wave (near) infrared, as well as outgoing long wave (far) infrared electromagnetic. An imbalance results in a change in temperature. Quantitative models vary in complexity. For example, a simple radiant heat transfer model treats the earth as a single point and averages outgoing energy. This can be expanded vertically (radiative-convective models) and/or horizontally. Coupled atmosphere–ocean–sea ice global climate models ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Climate Change Mitigation
Climate change mitigation is action to limit climate change by reducing Greenhouse gas emissions, emissions of greenhouse gases or Carbon sink, removing those gases from the atmosphere. The recent rise in global average temperature is mostly caused by emissions from fossil fuels burning (coal, oil, and natural gas). Mitigation can reduce emissions by energy transition, transitioning to sustainable energy sources, energy conservation, conserving energy, and Efficient energy use, increasing efficiency. In addition, can be carbon dioxide removal, removed from the atmosphere by carbon sink, enlarging forests, Wetland restoration, restoring wetlands and using other natural and technical processes, which are grouped together under the term of carbon sequestration. Solar energy and wind power have the highest climate change mitigation potential at lowest cost compared to a range of other options. Variable availability of sunshine and wind is addressed by energy storage and improved elec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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