Himalayan Meltdown: Thinning glaciers are bad news for climate change

NEW DELHI: Two recent studies have thrown more light on the condition of the glaciers across Himalayas and also those from the Trans-Himalayan region of Ladakh. Although the thinning, melting, and receding of glaciers have been known for quite some time now, every new study comes as an alarm for humanity.

In their latest published study, a bunch of researchers have studied the Pangong Tso region of Ladakh and ascertained the area changes and frontal retreat of 87 glaciers between 1990 and 2019 using satellite data. Besides, the glacier outlines were delineated manually and compared with existing regional and global glacier inventories that are available over the region.

This analysis indicated deglaciation of 6.7 per cent from 1990 to 2019 over the Pangong Region with clean-ice glaciers showing a higher retreat of 8.4 per cent compared to the debris-covered glaciers' 5.7 per cent. However, the overall recession is lower compared to other parts of north-western Himalayas, the study published in the study titled 'Spatiotemporal dynamics and geodetic of glaciers with varying debris cover in the Pangong region of Trans-Himalayan Ladakh India between 1990 and 2019', published in Frontiers in Earth Science journal in December 2021, said.

From 2000 to 2012, the glaciers lost an ice mass amounting to 0.33 to 0.05 metre water equivalent (m we) per year. The only thing is that the mean glacier elevation did not indicate any influence on glacier recession.

Unlike this, another study published last week found out that glaciers on Mount Everest such as South Col Glacier, which is located at the highest point in the world, have been thinning at an alarming rate, with estimated thinning rates of nearly two metre per year.

The study published in the Nature Portfolio journal 'Climate and Atmospheric Research', addresses a key question from the 2019 National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Everest Expedition on whether glaciers at the highest point on earth are experiencing the impacts of climate change. And the Mount Everest region has indeed been losing ice significantly since the late 1990s, it was revealed.

Melting glaciers have significant impact on water resources of Himalayan rivers due to change in glacier basin hydrology, downstream water budget, impact on hydropower plants due to variation in discharge, flash flood and sedimentation. They also increase in risk related to glacier hazards due to enhanced number and volume of glacier lakes, accelerated flash flood and Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs), impact on agro practices in high Himalayan region etc.

The study concludes that the Himalayan glaciers have lost ice 10 times more quickly over the last few decades than on average since the last major glacier expansion. In the last 400 to 700 years, the glaciers have lost around 40 per cent area - shrinking from 28,000 sq kms to around 19,600 sq km. IANS

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