A sign on a sheer cliff wall nearby points to a mountain hut. It should have been at visitors' eye level but is more than 60 feet above their heads. That's how much of the glacier has shrunk since the sign went up 35 years ago.
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Most of Austria's 925 glaciers have been receding under decades of global warming, prompting researchers and ski-lift operators to seek novel solutions. Here, in the Tyrol region of western Austria, they're fighting the melt by covering the weak spots with blankets of white plastic or foil that keep the cold in and the heat out.
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But then came the summer of 2003, when record temperatures and lack of snow and rain accelerated the melting, exposing patches of rock, earth and tree trunks of long-gone forests in the middle of ski slopes. Seeking relief, Wintersport Tirol AG & Co, which runs four Tyrolian ski resort regions, contacted scientists from the AlpS alpine research center and Innsbruck University glaciologists.
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Similar work is being done in neighboring Switzerland, where studies show that glaciers there have lost almost a fifth of their total area between 1985 and 2000, at a rate seven times faster than during the entire 123 years up to 1973.
Any wonder why the Europeans care just a tad more about Global Climate Change than Bushco does? Even though Alaskan fishing villages are also suffering extreme ocean rising and are having to move their entire villages inland.http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/07/18/saving.glaciers.ap/index.html
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