Apr
4
Melting Glaciers Melt Grain Supplies
April 4, 2008 | | Leave a Comment
by Rachael
Global warming, which largely facilitates the melting of glaciers, might trigger food shortages in India and China. According to New Scientist, “the irrigation water vital for the grain crops that feed China and India is at risk of drying up, as global warming melts the glaciers that feed Asia’s biggest rivers.”
Also quoted from the report, “The Ganges, Yellow and Yangtze Rivers in India and China are fed by rains during the monsoon season, but during the dry season they depend heavily on
meltwater from glaciers in the Himalayas. The Gangotri Glacier in the Himalayas alone supplies 70% of the flow of the Ganges in the dry season.”
Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute pointed out it had been estimated that “two-thirds of the glaciers on the Tibet-Qinghai Plateau could be gone by 2060″. He warned that the “diminished meltwater could make the flow of the three great rivers seasonal”.
Not only China and India are concerned, “60% of Pakistan’s people depend on grain irritated by the Indus river, which is also dependent on meltwater from Himalayan glaciers”. Underground water has also been consumed much faster. In addition to melting glaciers, “losing both sources of irrigation could lead to politically unmanageable food shortages, especially since rising populations in both countries require more food production, not less.”
Apart from glaciers, rainfall and monsoon patterns are also affected by global warming. Climate change does impose immense effect on food provision as well.
For example, increasing drought plus land overuse degrade soils in North and southern Africa lead to poor harvests.; while in Latin America, such climate change contributes to desertification of agricultural land which decreases crop yields and livestock. It is even observed that rise in sea surface temperature because of climate change have effects on coral reefs and hence relocate fish stocks.
International institutes have been engaged in cooperations with third world countries to tackle food security issues brought about by climate change. Some, however, said these countries actually contributed the least to global climate problems, and are the most vulnerable. Once institutes are running out of resources, these countries will most likely be left alone to bear the consequences.
