iPhone Climate App Shows Hikers Eroding Alps
8:40 am, September 30th, 2009, Nicole Martinelli
The hills are alive, with an iPhone app. @University Berne, Climate Change Institute.
Europe’s Alpine glaciers are going fast — some reports have them washed away by 2050.
To stop them, some Alpine regions have tried gimmicks like heat-reflecting blankets, but the Swiss region of Jungfrau is banking on an iPhone app to raise awareness.
Developed by the University of Berne’s Institute for Climate Change, the Jungfrau Climate Guide app, also available on iTunes, shows hikers where the effects of climate change are already visible and what scientists know about the subject.
iPhones waiting to tour the Alps. @University Berne, Climate Change Institute.
Visitors to the Jungfrau region, south of Interlaken, pick up iPhones at the tourist office for a tour of Alpine erosion on seven specific paths.
Guided by the iPhone’s GPS function, the curious can explore a handful of hotspots to learn more about climate change, climate research, natural hazards and melting glaciers.
On an outing with a BBC reporter testing the app, one of the hotspots mentioned by the iPhone guide as site of erosion gave way to an impromptu rock slide.
“This kind of thing is happening basically all the time now,” said Kaspar Meuli of the Climate Change Institute. “Just two kilometers from here they had to build a special tunnel to protect the path from rock falls.”
Posted by Nicole Martinelli in News, iPhone, iPhone Apps | Comment on this article
Highway encounter with Jobs, see this link: http://apple4.us/2009/09/steve-on-101.html
xpk, on September 30th, 2009 at 8:57 am
Strange, because last I checked no one can actually show evidence that Climate Change (Global Warming) is happening and that we are causing it. Hmmmm, so this is all just bogus then. Well you know what they say about people that believe in Man-Made Global Warming…..a sucker is born every minute.
Jared, on September 30th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
Every summer, there are reports of crumbling Alps, major landslides and erosion, along these lines: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-592282/Are-Dolomites-disappearing.html
The original BBC post attributes it due to global warming / human intervention. Above, we’re just talking about “climate change,” — I share some of your skepticism — which, unless you want to discount all the news reports, it seems pretty evident that the equilibrium of the glaciers has changed…
Nicole Martinelli, on October 1st, 2009 at 1:11 am