The Age Of Warming

60 Minutes Goes To The Bottom Of The World And To The Top of A Glacier To See The Fastest Warming Place On Earth

(CBS)  This segment was originally broadcast on April 1, 2007. It was updated on Aug. 14, 2007.

If you were waiting for the day global warming would change the world, that day is here. It’s happening, far from civilization’s notice, in a place about as remote as you can get.

Scientists believed Antarctica, at the bottom of the world, was too vast, too remote, to be bothered by climate change any time soon. But now glaciers are setting speed records for melting and whole colonies of penguins are disappearing.

Why does it matter?

Antarctica is a climate giant, driving ocean and wind currents worldwide, with enormous potential to raise sea levels.

To find out what’s happening down south, 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley set out on an expedition; the first stop was the high mountains of Patagonia in Chile, where you can actually see a new age beginning.

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The glacier O’Higgins, a mass of ice, has been frozen for tens of thousands of years in the mountains of southern Chile.

O’Higgins is spectacular for its beauty, but for a scientist like Gino Casassa it’s breathtaking for the speed it is disappearing – the glacier is morphing into a lake, retreating more than any glacier in South America.

The location where Pelley interviewed Casassa was covered by ice a hundred years ago. "I think it’s a very clear picture that the world is getting warmer and that the impacts that were projected even 10 or 20 years ago are happening right now," Casassa explains.

The glacier has fallen back nine miles in 100 years, throwing off icebergs that roll, as they dissolve into the lake.

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Photos: Go behind-the-scenes with 60 Minutes in Chile and Antarctica

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Casassa took Pelley and the 60 Minutes team to the face of O’Higgins, carefully measuring their approach; the glacier is a dynamic thing, cracking, popping, and changing, as huge pieces break off.

Casassa is a glaciologist, who surprised 60 Minutes when he revealed what he used to think of global warming. "I just didn’t believe in global warming. I mean in global warming being produced by mankind, by us contaminating the atmosphere, I just refused to believe that," he explains.

He says, now, the evidence has convinced him. Pelley set out to find more evidence, as Casassa went to measure the height of O’Higgins. The 60 Minutes team climbed to a spot where Casassa had crossed from earth to ice in 2004. But now, in 2007, that spot was covered by water.

Much to his surprise, there was a thousand feet of water where he had walked three years ago. The group had to hike for hours to get to the ice. When they got there, they found it blackened by earth and volcanic ash. Casassa set up a receiver to measure the distance from the top of O’Higgins to satellites overhead.

He measures the distance to get a contour line at the top of the glacier. "As we walk, the receiver, which is in my backpack, is capturing data every one second," Casassa explains.

And the data showed Casassa that glacier O’Higgins has thinned 92 feet in seven years.

And it's not unique. More than 90 percent of the world’s glaciers are retreating. And if you’re looking for early trouble from climate change, this is it. Glacial runoff provides water for 1.5 billion people, mostly in South America, China and India.

"In the medium term, depending on the size of glacier…30 years, just a few decades, the glacier will start to waste away in such a degree that you will see the runoff the glacial melt coming from that glacier starting to decline," Casassa says.

Cities around the world, says Casassa, will be starved for water. And he says we now are seeing the first impacts.

60 Minutes wanted to see the evidence of warming nearer the bottom of the world. So Pelley and the team set sail from the last city south, Ushuaia, Argentina, on a two-day voyage to Antarctica.

It is more than 1,000 miles from glacier O’Higgins in Patagonia and across the Drake Passage to the Antarctic peninsula.

Here, 60 Minutes found there’s green where the white used to be; on the coast, in summer, there’s grass where the scientists used to ski. The area is called "Paradise Cove," and it is home to fur seals, lazy elephant seals and the Chinstrap penguin.

[ray_collins]

Don't you think there are natural factors that could be adding the greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere instead of us humans? There are hundreds of active volcanos erupting the so-called greenhouse gasses. Many areas of the world have seen drought conditions that have reduced the green factor for taking carbon-dioxide out of the atmosphere. I am a firm believer that temperatures are on the rise, and at an alarming rate, but why put the blame completely on human activity?

[rf35]

Volcanoes have been erupting for far longer than the 850,000 years referenced in the article. Nature always managed to balance out the effects of these. In the last 150 years or so, humans have started having a more dramatic impact that ever on our environment. While human activity is not the sole cause of greenhouse gas emissions, we have most certainly thrown the environment out of the balance that was maintained for so many millions of years. Ever wonder WHY many areas of the world have been experiencing drought conditions? Man has clear-cut forests, paved prairies, and spewed thousands of tons of chemicals into the atmosphere. What do you think that does to the natural balance? The answer is sitting in Antarctica melting and in the next few decades, New York may well be swimming in it!

[dynosor]

This is amazing: Ice melting in one location when most Antarctic weather stations show the temperature going down. Just Google Antarctic station temperature and see for yourself.

Next we will be told that it is the combustion of fossil fuels that killed off the dinosaurs.

[chuck8386]

The major influences on climate change are cause by changes in the Earth's orbit and its wobble. These create the 100,000 year glacial cycles. We are in an interglacial period now, but in another 20,000 years there will be a glacier two miles thick here in New England. Shoveling the roof will be really tough.

The temperature difference between now and the glacial period is only 5 degrees celsius. That's why a 1 degree change in global temperature is significant. Disappearing glaciers mean that water sources that support large populations will eventually dry up.

CO2 causes most global warming and virtually all of the CO2 increase is from burning fossil fuels. Got to www.realclimate.org for some excellent science.

[s6060601]

Quick question - why was there no counter opinion offered in this piece? Every other topic gets a pro or con, for or against, etc - why not this 'scientific' topic?

[bill1linda]

On our Alaskan cruise we received a map of Glacier Bay as the ship entered it. In 1750, it was a glacier out to the Inland Passage. By the early 1800's it had retreated 60 miles or so. It seems that the earth is in a warming trend. We are no doubt adding to the problem, but humans probably could have little effect in reversing the trend. See about Glacier Bay: http://www2.nature.nps.gov/geology/parks/glba/.

[michalak4]

So much of the media has addressed global warming, but little time is ever given as to how we as a population can make viable changes our own lives to reverse the trend. 60 Minutes should do a series of segments focusing on the major contributers to global warming and how we can achieve positive impact. Since our dependancy on eating meat is perhaps the single largest contributor to the climate change - even more so than driving cars, I would suggest starting there. Not even Al Gore wants to touch that one.

[rf35]

As a carnivore, I don't plan on cutting meat out of my diet.

The sad thing is that it is too late to do anything about global warming. That's why there is little said about reversing the trend. I still advocate getting the world, especially America, off fossil fuels. It just makes sense to end our dependence on oil and be able to breathe cleaner air. But global warming is too far along to do much about in the short term. Whether human activity caused this or not, humans certainly can%u2019t do anything to reverse it.

[jinxkity]

In the mid 70s through the early 90s we were warned about the effects cutting down the Amazon rain forests would have. 80% - 90% of the earth's moisture came from there. It should be no surprise that the earth is now having to dig into it's reserves to keep our climate moist enough. Whether man exists on this planet or not, the earth, with it's extraordinary ability to survive, will.

[realcrisis]

Al Gore may be a visionary, but if THIS is true, does it not represent the real crisis?

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/03/what_al_gore_really_wants.html

I am buying his book and movie to find out.

[wildriversta]

I don't pretend to understand all of the science regarding global warming. I do question some of the validity and assumptions we are asked to believe. Take for example the ice core drillings that were mentioned in this report of Antartica. By drilling down in the ice to take core samples going back thousands of years we are told that the air samples were purer. This may be viable, but honestly if we are in a global warming trend that we have caused over the last 100 or 200 years, any samples that would have indicated the air quality at that time would have already melted. The idea of drilling down to get core samples of previous years would indicate to me, the average human being using common sense, that we are experiencing a cooling and a deposit of ice formations over the last years. I am aware that only two decades ago they were warning us of global cooling. Regarding my own experience in Minnesota, our records indicate that the land of 10,000 lakes have had no consistant indication of warming trends based on annual reports of ice out dates on area lakes since such records were kept. I have yet to see a direct significant connection to man's contribution to global warming. While there is enough data to show there are climatic changes, can anyone really test all of the variables to make the assumption that man is responsible. In the mean time I do support conservation efforts and am waiting for more verifiable proof.

[nileriver2]

Great job Scott Peley.
One thing though, there is no place on earth named Anartic. It is Anarctic - like the other side of the world from Arctic. I looked it up in the Reader's Digest World Atlas!
Another thing is, there are no polar bears in either the Anartic or the Anarctic. Check - it - out!

[silver9991]

Michalak4:

"Since our dependancy on eating meat is perhaps the single largest contributor to the climate change - even more so than driving cars, I would suggest starting there. Not even Al Gore wants to touch that one."

Not necessesarily so. Yes, the big bang meat-raising conglomerates are an issue, but sustainable meat ranching IS sometimes better on an energy-use scale than trucking in your (big bang) veggies from 2000 miles away. The artichokes I'm cooking for tonight's dinner came in from the other side of the continent. The venison I ate two nights ago foraged in the wild and didn't take any extra energy to get to my home (because the person who brought it to my doorstep was coming here anyway).

There's a lot of talk about moving to corn for our energy needs. One plus: it gets us off of immediate foreign oil dependency. The negative: we just drop that dependency back a layer or two. It's still there.

There's some talk about animals like goats, which can live in areas where human crops cannot grow, and free-range pasture. This source of meat would not be cheap perhaps, but can provide for sustainable protein production.

My point is that there are a lot of variables on food sources and environmental impact, and we should keep this in mind.

[silver9991]

Ray_Collins: no one has said that there aren't Planet Earth factors adding to the global warming/climate change events.

YES, decidedly they do happen.

The question is: what percentage is us, and what percentage is this planet? I don't know the answer to that.

I don't live in an all-or-nothing world. Things are seldom just one cause, and never something else. They blend. For better, or for worse.

[silver9991]

astro2111 - kudos to you for being able to go out and do your own research!

[johnsmith511]

Thank you for the story, Global Warming/Climate Control.

The stories objectivity was wonderfully shown. That''s right, there''s only one side to global warming, now changed to "climate change".

Why the name change? It''s hard to talk about "Global Warming" when it snows in areas with global warming demonstrations (LOL).

Now that 60 Minutes has told the story from ONLY one side, let''s hear from the other side, those scientists who do not believe in the Global Warming Theory.

When the weather men start predicting the future weather patterns, correctly, then maybe we can look into "your science" into global warming.

Please let me know the airing of the other side.

Drinking the Kool-Aid

Be Good

[smabo]

Something new under the sun?

Interesting climate changes have been occurring since time immemorial.
If climate change is deemed to be such an alarming problem, than why have not the seas risen even an infinitesimal amount in our recent industrial era history?
Certainly we should all be concerned about our environment; but the waters are being murkified and methinks the largest supplier of %u2018warming%u2019 is the hollow hot air emanating from profiteering pundits from each side of the issue.

http://hotairorrealconcern.blogspot.com/

[Terry Mooney]

I watched with great interest your story about the Antarctic warming phenomenon and specifically the conclusion drawn that human activity since the Industrial Revolution is the main contributor to the problem.
A few weeks ago, I had a dream that I wwas receiving a voice-mail and it was from the Chief Economist of the Universe. The subject was global warming and a solution to the problem was offered.Being a musician, I composed a song which I think captures the message. I''m wondering if you are interested in hearing the song?

[extremophil]

Only one answer to this problem: Penguin burgers.

[drwhite48]

I agree with almost all the comments. There was no mention of the fact that the main ice in Antarctica is "thickening" significantly. It seems that even though some warming may be happening, earth is compensating by increasing snows in antarctica so the net effect of sea level rise is near zero. Why don''t you guys show all sides of a question? That''s why I normally watch Fox news.

[drwhite48]

I tell you what, let''s shut the whole thing down. All industry, power production, etc. No more warming. No more food, no more CBS, no more going to see Grandma in the family car, nothing. You eat what you grow or catch. Cuts down on stray dogs don''t it. No grocery stores.
Sounds a bit like the stone age. If that''s where the liberals want to go, well, Gore might just talk them into it.

[hellocbs]

As someone who spent a year at the South Pole Scott Pelley%u2019s praise of Gino Casassa was over rated when he said: He was so respected a mountain was named after him. When Antarctica was mapped the mountains were name after anyone who was there. I worked with a cook and communication person who had a mountain named for them

[dmontaine1]

Thank you for re-airing the alert on global warming in the Southern Hemisphere. I have an idea I have been sending to potential investors to slow glacial melting that I would like to send to Scientist Gino Casassa for his input on how to make it more effective, and on how we might proceed. Basically, I propose we use reflective sailcloth to shield the ice and waters. I would appreciate very much information from you on how I could contact him or send him my thoughts.

Thank you for your inspiring program!

Sincerely,
Dot Montaine

[tnollc]

Why let facts get in the way. The average temperture at the south pole is MINUS 49. Unless there has been a change in the melting point of ice - nothing will melt until the temperature is around freezing. For you at
CBS 60 minutes it is 32 degrees. The south pole is not melting!