Global Warming Science: www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming
Bolivia
[last update: 2010/12/12]
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December 2010 – “Bolivia's defiant leader sets radical tone at Cancún climate talks”
""Some powers are happy to put forward measures that would lead to an increase of 2C, and some think even of increases to four degrees. Imagine what our planet would look like with an increase in temperature of two degrees or four degrees, given that at 0.8 degrees we already have serious problems in the world… It's easy for people in an air-conditioned room to continue with the policies of destruction of Mother Earth. We need instead to put ourselves in the shoes of families in Bolivia and worldwide that lack water and food and suffer misery and hunger. People here in Cancún have no idea what it is like to be a victim of climate change." [http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/dec/11/cancun-talks-evo-morales]
From the same article: “the climate is changing dramatically in Bolivia and other Andean countries, Morales insists. "The lakes are drying. There is drought. Millions of fish are dying in the Amazon basin of frost."”
Evo Morones ain’t too bright if he thinks Bolivia is getting too warm – the section on temperatures below shows that there is a long term cooling trend in Bolivia. But then, he’s smarter than western leaders like Obama who actually fall for the climate lies.
"Our aim here is to look at how to cool down planet Earth. Our planet has a high temperature, it is wounded, and we are witnessing the convulsions of planet Earth," said Morales. "We have an enormous responsibility toward life and humanity. If, from here, we send the Kyoto Protocol to the rubbish bin we are responsible for ecocide and genocide because we will be sending many people to their deaths," Morales warned." [http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2010/2010-12-10-01.html]
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April 2010 – Bolivia hosted the “World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth” Bolivia’s president, Evo Morales, stated at the conference: “How can we as human beings collectively end irrational industrialization and consumption to cease provoking irreparable harm to our environment?” The “conference on climate change wants US$300 billion in annual compensation from wealthy countries and global companies to deal with global warming effects”.
See: http://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/AGWSocialism.htm for details about the conference and sources for the above quotes.
Time magazine reported on the conference, perpetuating the myth “that the developing world is going to suffer 75% of the effects of climate change. … Since Bolivia is suffering the consequences of a sequence of conditions it did not cause, there's a debt to be paid” [http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1984064,00.html]
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The following figure shows the average annual temperature anomalies for the six 5x5 degree grids covering most of Bolivia, for 1930 - 2009 (data from the Hadley / UEA Climatic Research Unit (HadCRU) 5x5 degree gridded data – CRUTEM3 database, plotted at http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/climate.aspx)
The above figure shows that there is no significant warming in Bolivia.
The following figure shows daily temperature anomalies for La Paz/El Alto, 1995-2009, showing no warming over the last 15 years. [http://www.inesad.edu.bo/mmblog/mm_20090323.htm]
The following figure shows annual average temperature anomalies for La Paz/El Alto, 1920-2009, from the HadCRU database.
The following figures are from the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory for a rectangle covering Bolivia (same rectangle as on map above showing six 5x5 degree grids) [http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/data/timeseries/timeseries1.pl] It has been cooling in Bolivia since the mid-1980s.
Monthly Temperature
July Temperature
January Temperature
The following figures show maps of trends over the period 1960 – 1998 for temperature (left) and precipitation (right) showing the cooling trend and increased rainfall in the tropical part of Bolivia. [http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/359/1443/311.full.pdf]
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Glaciers
The Time article cited previously also stated: “The Andean nation's millenniums-old glaciers are melting down to bare rock because of global warming that the country's 9 million residents did little to create. Scientists in Bolivia say its ice masses have lost 50% of their volume in the past 40 years alone. But this goes beyond mourning the slow death of great natural beauty. These glaciers provide 20% of the drinking water for two of Bolivia's largest cities, La Paz and El Alto, as well the surrounding countryside”.
The Chacaltaya glacier is one of the glaciers providing water to La Paz. The 1998 El Nino resulted in the permanent closing of the Chacaltaya ski resort. Glaciers have been decreasing since the end of the Little Ice Age in the 1800s. Unfortunately, observations of Chacaltaya were only recorded starting in 1940. It has since decreased by 90%.
A 2009 study “Reconciling melting glaciers and falling temperatures in the Bolivian highlands” [http://www.inesad.edu.bo/mmblog/mm_20090323.htm], states: “All long-run monthly temperature series for the Bolivian highlands, including the La Paz/El Alto station, which is located near Chacaltaya, show cooling trends over the last six decades of about -0.2ºC/decade. … These observed negative temperature trends in the Bolivian highlands beg two questions: 1. How can the falling temperatures in the Bolivian highlands be reconciled with the visibly diminishing glaciers? And 2. Why are temperatures falling, when they are supposed to be increasing?”
The study concludes: “If the rapid melting of Chacaltaya since the mid 1970s were caused by increasing temperatures due to increased CO2 in the atmosphere, we would have observed increased night time temperatures, increased average temperatures, and increases in cloud cover and precipitation (that is what CO2 driven climate models would suggest). But instead we have observed decreasing cloud cover, decreasing average temperatures (likely the result of night time temperatures falling more than day time temperatures increased), and decreasing precipitation, all of which conspired to melt the glacier. The observed evidence from Chacaltaya is thus inconsistent with the Anthropogenic Greenhouse Warming (AGW) theory, or, at least, if there is an AGW signal, it is completely drowned by other climatic changes unrelated to AGW. It is ironic that the melting Chacaltaya glacier has become such an important symbol of the AGW theory, when in fact the evidence from Chacaltaya seems to refute this theory.”
The following figure shows the Chacaltaya glacier on Google maps [Apr 25, 2010].
Snow line on the Bolivian mountains is related to precipitation, which is related to ENSO: “A progressive rise of the snow line elevation is observed from 1963 to 1998 with a sustained rise from 1984 to 1990. The snow line altitude is related to the Southern Oscillation Index. Even after the high precipitation of the 1996-1997 wet season, the following El Nino 1997-1998 leads to a substantial rise of the snow line. The snow line elevation is related primarily to the total rainy season predipitation and to a lesser degree to the maximum monthly mean temperature of the warmest month, thus confirming a greater snow line sensitivity to precipitation than to temperature.” [http://www.atmos.albany.edu/facstaff/mathias/pubs/Arnaud_et_al_2001.pdf]
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Drought
“The Peruvian–Bolivian Altiplano (highland plateau) at altitudes of 3000–4000mis one of the regions with the most severe environmental conditions for cropping. Frost and drought are common, with high evapotranspiration rates, low relative humidity, and low dew temperatures at night. In addition, there are high levels of UV radiation, and atmospheric CO2 pressure is about half that of sea level. The majority of the soils are marginal for farming. They are stony, saline, and either poorly or excessively drained, and have very low natural fertility with extreme pH values, from 4.8 in parts of Peru to 8.5 in the Bolivian salt flatlands” [https://lswiki.byu.edu/images/2/28/Drought_and_salinity_response.pdf]
“The prehistoric lakes Minchín and Tauca, which once covered most of this highland plateau, evaporated around 10,000 years ago, leaving behind a parched landscape of brackish puddles and salt deserts.” [http://www.lonelyplanet.com/shop_pickandmix/previews/bolivia-southern-altiplano-preview.pdf]
According to UNESCO “the highly variable climate and weather frustrates attempts of the rural families to accumulate assets and improve their living conditions. Periodic droughts and flooding as well as the occurrence of severe frost are characteristic of the climate of the highland and high plateau regions of Bolivia. … Rainfall patterns and the high altitude of the Andes have always made agriculture in the region vulnerable to frosts, hail, droughts and floods. Being classified as semi-arid and arid areas, farmers developed farming systems adapted to the harsh conditions”.
And regarding the agriculture-related land degradation: “Under the present conditions, the quinoa systems yields are poor and to obtain more yields, farmers exert pressure to open new lands without foreseeable reposition of inputs. Related to technology management, scientific and technical knowledge has been developed that shows that application of irrigation and fertility soil amendments may possibly boost quinoa yields with reduced pressure on the land and therefore reducing land degradation.” [http://www.unesco.org/science/doc/mab/Bolivia.pdf]
The following figure shows the annual precipitation for La Paz from the NOAA GHCN database (plotted at http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/climate.aspx). There is historically a large amount of variability.
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Alarm
In the article at the start of this page, Morales mentioned “Millions of fish are dying in the Amazon basin of frost.” He was referring to the very cold winter Bolivia experienced in August 2010.
[http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100827/full/news.2010.437.html]
The alarmist Nature blames
it on
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