Global Warming In Peru

Global Warming in Peru

Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its related effects. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperatureincreased by about 0.8 °C (1.4 °F) with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades. Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and scientists are more than 90%certain most of it is caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases produced by human activities such as deforestation and burning fossil fuel. These findings are recognized by the nationalscience academies of all the major industrialized countries.
It's a daily reality, particularly for the residents in the spectacular Urubamba River Valley, the birthplace of Incan civilization. Watchingthe sun rise from atop the Incan ruins at Machu Picchu, you can look around 360 degrees and see Andean mountains everywhere. The highest of them were always described in the guidebooks as "snowcapped." Today, they're more "snow frosted."
They still have snow, but there is a lot of rock now showing through on many of them. If these trends continue, in a few years they'll just be described as"steely gray." The great Andean glaciers are melting, receding at about 100 meters a decade.
"When I first started trekking to the Andes mountains 30 years ago, many climbing expeditions would reach thetop by climbing straight across the glaciers," said my traveling companion, Alfredo Ferreyros, the father of Peru's ecotourism industry, now head of Peruvian operations of Conservation International."Now, expeditions have to negotiate crevasses and increased risk of avalanche because of the instability of the snow pack. That's because of changes in temperature and fluctuations in precipitation."Nearby, in the Sacred Valley of the Incas, Jose Ignacio Lambarri, who owns a 60-acre farm, is also feeling the heat. He grows giant white corn, with kernels that used to be as big as a quarter....