On 03/31/2010 05:29 PM, fznidar...@aol.com wrote:
> Another speaker from Switzerland. Showed a picture of the top of > Matterhorn. It broke off and slid down. The culprit, the melting of > the permafrost due to global warming. This happened in 2003, according to stories I saw when I googled it. It was a large chunk of rock from the side of the peak. See for example: http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/Matterhorn_declared_off-limits_to_climbers.html?cid=3411328 http://tinyurl.com/yhfd5c8 Since then they've installed monitoring equipment to try to keep track of what's going on with the peak, presumably so people won't be trapped or killed if another major chunk breaks loose: http://www.ethlife.ethz.ch/archive_articles/0810XX_PermaSense/index_EN FWIW, in related news, we just had one of the warmest winters ever, here in Ottawa. It's not quite *the* warmest ever; that distinction belongs to the winter of 2001-2002. Story from the Ottawa Citizen: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/technology/Winter+That+Wasn/2707683/story.html http://tinyurl.com/yc7bnto Quote from the article: > The average November-to-March temperature of -2.4 C was more than three > degrees warmer than usual. Only the winter of 2001-02 was warmer. I have to wonder about people who claim that the trend is reversing, and things have actually cooled off in the last decade or two (a claim I think I've seen repeated on this mailing list). What planet are they living on?
