US scientists, for the first time, have compared ancient South American and Asian ice core climate records to show how Earth's climate has changed. The scientists say ice cores taken from the South American Andes and the Asian Himalayas suggest most of the high-altitude glaciers in the planet's tropical regions will disappear in the near future.
The researchers from Ohio State University's Byrd Polar Research Center and three other universities also found glaciers and ice caps around the world are rapidly retreating, even in areas in which precipitation increases are documented. That implicates increasing temperatures — and not decreasing precipitation — as the most likely culprit.
The climate records were retrieved from seven remote locations north and south of the equator. Cores drilled through ice caps and glaciers there have captured a climate history of each region, in some cases, providing annual records and in others decadal averages.
The study included cores taken from the Huascaran and Quelccaya ice caps in Peru; the Sajama ice cap in Bolivia; and the Dunde, Guliya, Puruogangri and Dasuopu ice caps in China.
The study appears in the current issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
