Climate change is affecting the global landscape of mountains. Melting glaciers and the changing geography poses potential risks to climbers and the future of mountaineering. Global landscapes are changing fast.
The mission of the 59th Antarctic Expedition is to study ice cores of exceptional age; the crew hopes to reach depths of ice that are older than previously recorded as having been studied. In 2007, a Japanese mission took samples from ice cores that aged around 720,000-years-old; the team studied them in their Dome Fuji Station located in inland Antarctica. These cores were located at a depth of 3,035 meters.
Could climate change affect outdoor sports that rely heavily on safety, like climbing? One new study by Arnaud J.A.M. Temme published in a geographical journal, Geografiska Annaler, and based on research done by Wageningen University, says this could be the case.
More particularly based on climbing activities in the Alps, the author used previously published mountain guides to dissect the possibility of melting permafrost contributing to the loosening and falling of rocks on mountains.
