World Environment Day 2008(5 June)--Melting Ice-A Hot Topic?

New UNEP Report Shows Just How Hot It's Getting Lives and Livelihoods of Hundreds of Millions if not Billions in Many Parts of the World Influenced by Ice and Snow Losses Linked to Climate Change

Impacts are likely to include significant changes in the availability of water supplies for drinking and agriculture, rising sea levels affecting low lying coasts and islands and an increase in hazards such as subsidence of currently frozen land.

An estimated 40 per cent of the world's population could be affected by loss of snow and glaciers on the mountains of Asia says the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) in the Global Outlook for Ice and Snow.

Melting ice and snow are also likely to increase hazards including avalanches and floods from the build up of potentially unstable glacial lakes. These can burst their ice and soil dams sending walls of water down valleys at speeds close to that of a modern anti-tank missile.

To Know More Bout this please visit http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=512&ArticleID=5599&l=en