Global Warming a Left Wing Democrat Conspiracy? Global Warming Slides In Big Time

4,000 people on evacuation alert after melting glacier triggers massive slide

Huge ice sheet breaks from Greenland glacier

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4,000 people on evacuation alert after melting glacier triggers massive slide

By Jes Abeita and Kelly Sinoski

VANCOUVER — About 4,000 people in the the Lillooet River Valley are on evacuation alert following a massive landslide earlier Friday. Emergency officials are now going door-to-door, handing out notices.


RCMP in British Columbia say a melting glacier triggered a two-kilometre avalanche that came to rest atop the Meager Creek hot spring outside Pemberton, B.C., trapping about 14 campers who were in the area.

Police don't believe anybody was hit by the sliding mass of muddy debris but say a group was camping on the wrong side of a service road that became blocked by debris.


The slide, which occurred at about 5:30 a.m. has raised fears of flooding threats in the area.



Both the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District and the ministries of forests and environment are reviewing the safety threat to local residents as the water levels continue to swell.


Capricorn Creek is continuing to flow into Meager Creek, which has been completely blocked by the slide, while the Lillooet River has cut its own channel, said Ian Indridson, spokesman for the Provincial Emergency Program.


Indridson said the ministers' review will also look at whether there should be any road closures to protect the public. "We are assessing that dam created by the slide to assess what the potential impact downstream will be," he said.


Indridson said he wasn't sure if the 14 people taken out of the area were locals or visitors but noted they were in an area often used by campers and hikers.


"There's only one access in and one access out," RCMP Sgt. Shawn Lemay said. "They were trapped on the other side and couldn't get out."


Local helicopter pilots helped airlift the uninjured group to nearby Pemberton where they remain, he said.


The overnight incident was initially reported as a landslide but Lemay confirmed it was actually the Capricorn glacier atop Capricorn Mountain that gave way.


Geologists and other technicians are now assessing not only what triggered the avalanche, but also whether the area is stable, Lemay said.


Three homes were reportedly evacuated as a result of the incident.


Pemberton, a community of about 2,500 people, is about 155 kilometres northeast of Vancouver.


The area has a long history of geological instability. A flood swept through the Meager Creek hot springs in 1985, damaging cars and bridges and forcing the rescue of visitors by helicopter. And in 1975, four consulting geologists doing geothermal studies for BC Hydro were buried in an avalanche at nearby Devastation Creek.


The area is sparsely populated, most with farms. Some residents panicked and fled the area.

Denise Vanloon, whose farm is on the Hurley Forest Service Road leading to the Meager Creek hotsprings, refused to leave, saying she did what she always did in these situations: she baked muffins. As she looked out her window, she could see convoys of trucks heading down the road.

"I haven't heard a whole lot," she said Friday. "There were a few people who started hooking up their fifth wheels and motorhomes just in case … they're probably gone by now."

Vanloon said she was more concerned with people being stranded in the area, which is a popular hiking and camping area in the summertime. On Thursday, a couple of young men from Alberta passed by her property on their way to the Meager Hotsprings, she said, but she warned them not to go because "we know there's been a few bad signals up there the last little bit."

The avalanched forced Great Pacific Pumice Inc., which has a mine in the area, to stop work Friday after the water and debris plugged the main road into the mine.

Spokesman Sandy Biln said he wasn't sure when his workers would be able to return to work, which is already limited to four and half months of the year because the mine can't be accessed after mid-October because of the weather. He said he hadn't crunched the numbers but hoped the company wouldn't be out for too long.

"We have contracts which we have to fill," Biln said. "We hope they'll do something to fix the roads … they're going to check on it and see what it takes. The road is completely gone.

"If it doesn't take that long we should be okay."

Residents said the Lillooet River had started to rise again Friday afternoon.


Three landslides were reported around Meager Creek in October 1990, triggered by heavy rains. The slides blocked access to the hot springs, a popular tourist spot, and stranded five tourists by knocking down a bridge.


The area is also home to B.C.'s largest, most recently active volcano — a series of peaks known as the Mount Meager complex, officially listed as dormant. It last erupted more than 2,360 years ago.


There have been other earth slides in B.C. this year.


On June 13, a massive mudslide destroyed five homes and severely damaged three others in Oliver in B.C.'s Okanagan region, about 400 kilometres east of Vancouver.


That slide, which didn't injure anyone, was caused by the collapse of an 80-year-old earth-filled dam. The slide also wiped out several orchards and vineyards.



Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/

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Huge ice sheet breaks from Greenland glacier

A giant sheet of ice measuring 260 sq km (100 sq miles) has broken off a glacier in Greenland, according to researchers at a US university.

The block of ice separated from the Petermann Glacier, on the north-west coast of Greenland.

It is the largest Arctic iceberg to calve since 1962, said Prof Andreas Muenchow of the University of Delaware.

The ice could become frozen in place over winter or escape into the waters between Greenland and Canada.

If the iceberg moves south, it could interfere with shipping, Prof Muenchow said.

Cracks in the Petermann Glacier had been observed last year and it was expected that an iceberg would calve from it soon.

The glacier is 1,000 km (620 miles) south of the North Pole.

A researcher at the Canadian Ice Service detected the calving from Nasa satellite images taken early on Thursday, the professor said.

The images showed that Petermann Glacier lost about one-quarter of its 70km-long (43-mile) floating ice shelf.

There was enough fresh water locked up in the ice island to "keep all US public tap water flowing for 120 days," said Prof Muenchow.

He said it was not clear if the event was due to global warming.

The first six months of 2010 have been the hottest on record globally, scientists have said.

Thousands of icebergs calve off Greenland's glaciers annually, but they are seldom so large.

http://www.bbc.co.uk