Global warming melts Peruvian peaks

The snow atop Pastoruri, one of the Andes most beautiful peaks and a big draw for mountaineers and skiers, could disappear along with many of Peru's glaciers in the next several years because of global warming, experts say.

At 17,000 feet (5,191 meters) in the northern Andes, the glacier, which covers famed Pastoruri has shrunk at a rate of 62 feet (19 meters) every year since 1980. Today it covers a surface area of 0.7 square miles (1.8 square kilometres), about 25 percent less than a quarter of a century ago.

Pastoruri is one of 18 glacier-capped mountains in Peru suffering the effects of climate change, according Peru's National Environment Council, CONAM.

"If climatic conditions remain as they are, all the glaciers (in Peru) below 18,000 feet will disappear by around 2015," CONAM's President Patricia Iturregui told Reuters in an interview.

Pastoruri is a major tourist attraction near the city of Huaraz, 230 miles (419 km) northeast of Lima, and is the country's most popular mountain for skiing.

Peru has the most tropical glaciers in Latin America and has already lost 20 percent of the 1,615 miles (2,600 kms) of glaciers running through its central and southern Andes in the past 30 years, according to CONAM.

Climate change, caused by greenhouses gases such as carbon dioxide, is considered one of the biggest longer term threats to mankind and could bring higher sea levels, devastating floods and droughts.

The world has been heating up in the past 50 years and the Earth is at its hottest in 10,000 years, scientists say.

"There are 18 glacial mountains in Peru and they are all experiencing melting," Iturregui said.