Scientific Reports: Melting of glaciers in the Himalayas accelerates tenfold due to warming
Photo: Wigbert Röth / globallookpress.com
Scientists at the University of Leeds in the UK have recorded that the rate of melting of the Himalayan glaciers has increased significantly due to global warming, threatening the sustainable water supply of millions of people. This is reported in an article published in the journal Scientific Reports.
Researchers reconstructed the size and area of 14,798 Himalayan glaciers during the Little Ice Age, 400-700 years ago. Researchers estimate that since that time the glaciers have lost about 40 percent of their area, which has decreased from 28 thousand to about 19.6 thousand square kilometers today. During this period, they lost 390-586 thousand cubic kilometers of ice. This is equivalent to all the ice contained in the Alps, the Caucasus and Scandinavia combined.
The Himalayan glaciers are losing ice at a rate at least ten times the average rate of melting over centuries. However, the acceleration has occurred mainly over the past several decades. Water, which has already been released by the disappearance of glaciers, has raised sea levels around the world by 0.92-1.38 millimeters.
The accelerating melting of the Himalayan glaciers has serious implications for hundreds of millions of people who depend on Asia's main river systems – the Brahmaputra, Ganges and Indus. Himalayan glaciers are losing mass faster in eastern regions, including eastern Nepal and Bhutan. Melting is also facilitated by lakes at the mouths of glaciers and natural debris on the ice surface.
