Perfect Storm: Unless the nation of Peru takes immediate action, the ancient Andean glaciers could disappear, taking with them the runoff that provides much of the water for the country’s most populous areas. NBC’s Anne Thompson reports.

Posted: Tuesday, December 08, 2009 4:32 PM
Filed Under: On Assignment
By Anne Thompson, NBC News’ Chief Environmental Affairs Correspondent COPENHAGEN –  Decisions being made here at the 192-nation climate conference will affect people in far away corners of the globe. In the case of Peru, the South American nation 6,800 miles away, negotiations here could have an impact on the country’s shrinking supply of life’s most basic resource: water. The United Nations says 80 percent of the water that flows to Peru’s highly populated Pacific coast originates in the Andes Mountains. The Andes hold the world’s biggest collection of tropical glaciers – glaciers that are disappearing. The glaciers in the Cordillera Blanca mountain range stand three miles above sea level. While the majestic mountains appear over overwhelming, Peru’s foremost glaciologist Marco Zapata said that the glaciers of the Cordillera Blanca are now 27 percent smaller than  they were 33 years ago.  In fact, the Pastoruri Glacier is now split in two. It has lost so much ice, scientists don’t even consider it a glacier any more. They call it an ice cap. We tried to walk on it, but we didn’t get very far.  Zapata believed it was too dangerous to walk on because it was too unstable. …

Peru’s swiftly diminishing resource: water