From
Kevin Hester -
I've
just come home from Nepal where we treked to 4000m at Temboche
monastery and never touched a drop of ice or snow. I'm guessing the
lowest ice we saw was around the 4500m level. I was to say the least
very surprised and disapointed. Naturally I'm worried about what we
found or should I say didn't find
Glaciers
in Tibet retreating at alarming rate
23
April, 2015
BEIJING:
China's glaciers particularly those in Tibet have retreated by about
7,600sqkm - nearly 18 per cent - in the last 65 years and even the
thick ice around the base camp of the Mt Everest has disappeared
exposing its rocks structure due to rising pollution level, officials
said.
An
average of 247sqkm of glacial ice has disappeared every year since
1950, a Chinese official said. Even mountaineers on Mount Qomolangma
(Tibetan name for Mt Everest) seem surprised.
"Qomolangma
base camp, 5,200 meters above sea level, had been covered by thick
ice, but now there is nothing but stones," Zhang Mingxing,
director of Tibet's mountaineering administration center, told
state-run Xinhua news agency.
His
view was echoed by Kang Shichang of the institute of Tibetan Plateau
research, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He calculates that
glaciers around the mountain have shrunk by 10 per cent since 1974,
evidenced in the fact that a glacial lake downstream of the mountain
is now 13 times bigger.
China
has more than 46,000 glaciers, mainly on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau,
about 14.5 per cent of the world's total.
Glaciers
are not only a major reservoir of fresh water but an important part
of the climate system. "They are sources of life for China's
western arid regions," said Kang.
The
melting glaciers will inevitably lead to ecological and environmental
change.
Liu
Shiyin, who led a survey of China's glaciers, said that in the short
term, retreating glaciers will release meltwater and create lakes,
leading to disaster.
Glacial
lakes in Tibet were breached 15 times between the 1930s and 1990s,
causing floods and mudslides.
Glacial
melt is closely related to climate change and the regional government
of Tibet is doing all it can to cut emissions.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.