[imagesource: AFP/Miguel Medina]

While ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’ are often used interchangeably, the two have very distinct meanings.

Global warming refers to the long-term heating of the planet’s climate system which has been observed since the pre-industrial period (between 1850 and 1900). It’s caused by human activities like the burning of fossil fuels which increases heat-trapping greenhouse gasses.

Climate change, on the other hand, is all-encompassing and measures both human and naturally produced increases in the Earth’s surface temperature.

The long and short of it is that the Earth is getting warmer.

While this is hard to imagine as we sit covered in blankets, near heaters, during this freezing Cape Town winter, the effects are clear when we take a broader view of things.

In Italy, for example, the Presena glacier has lost more than a third of its volume since 1993.

Per The Guardian:

Once the ski season is over and cable cars are berthed, conservationists race to try and stop it melting by using white tarps that block the sun’s rays.

“This area is continuously shrinking, so we cover as much of it as possible,” explains Davide Panizza, 34, who heads the Carosello-Tonale company that does the work.

From covering around 30,000 sq metres in 2008 when the project began, his team now places 100,000 sq metres under wraps.

The coverings are “geotextile tarpaulins” which reflect sunlight, thereby maintaining a lower temperature than the external one. This, they hope, will preserve as much snow as possible.

Take a look:

The sheets cover an area at an altitude of 2 700 to 3 000 metres. They are rolled down the mountain and then sewn together and pulled taught to prevent warm drafts from getting trapped underneath.

Bags of sand are then used to weigh them down.

Once in place, the sheets, which measure 70m by 5m, are hardly distinguishable from the packed white snow beneath.

“There are glacier cover systems similar to ours on a few Austrian glaciers, but the surface covered by the tarpaulins is much smaller,” Panizza said.

The Austrian-made tarps cost up to €400 ($450) each and it takes the team six weeks to install them – and another six weeks to remove them before winter sets in again.

New technology has increased the effectiveness of the sheets.

They’ll be removed in September.

Drastic times call for drastic measures.

[source:guardian]