Tuesday, September 4, 2007

20070904 Times Atlas shows effect of global warming

clipped from www.telegraph.co.uk
Images showing deforestation in Iguacu, South America taken 20 years apart: Left 1973, right 2003
Images showing deforestation in Iguacu, South America taken 20 years apart: Left 1973, right 2003

The drastic effects of climate change across the globe are disclosed in a new world atlas.

Cartographers of the Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World have had to re-draw coastlines and reclassify land types because of the effects of global warming.

Since the atlas was last published four years ago, sea levels have lowered in some cases and risen in others while ice caps have shrunk and lakes have almost disappeared.

The atlas's editor-in-chief, Mick Ashworth, said: "We can literally see environmental disasters unfolding before our eyes. We have a real fear that in the near future famous geographical features will disappear forever."

• Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa has lost more than 80 per cent of its ice cap in the last 100 years.

• The Pacific islands of Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Tokelau, Tuvalu and Vanuata are all under serious threat from rising sea levels.

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