The Third Pole of this planet called the Tibetan Plateau has for long been claimed important for water availability in Asia.
Ten major rivers including the rowdy Brahmaputra and many others derive their energy and existence from the Tibetan Plateau and act as a survival insurer for one- third of the world’s population residing in Eastern and Southern Asia.
It remains a mystery how the region’s powerful dynamic and thermal effects and its magic with atmospheric circulations therein significantly influence the East Asian climate pattern, including the Indian monsoon and even certain processes in the Northern Hemisphere.
Crucial for the water security and nature disaster protection in Asia, is now witnessing its hydrosphere and cryosphere facing irreparable damage with the changes in ecosystem as well as environment within the plateau, keeping aside the socio- economic aspect and livelihoods of the people.
The world is beginning to crumble with its own footprint and a bigger sign is just closeby.
The highest peak of the Himalayas we boast of i.e., Mount Everest has begun to showcase its deep existential crisis. Its highest glacier is receding rapidly with having lost its 2000 years’ worth of Ice in bare 30 years.
This is presented by a study undertaken through an extensive extraction an ice core from the glacier at a record elevation of more than 1,000 meters (3,200 feet).
This involved collecting biological samples, collating and drafting a high- resolution map, analyzing the water quality while scrounging the history pages of Everest’s glaciers.
The lead- Scientist explains: “It was the most complete scientific experiment ever conducted on the south side of Everest”.
The South Col Glacier, having been trampled by the ambitious climbers has apparently lost half of its mass because of warming temperatures since the 1990s and may probably disappear by the middle of current century.
“And one of the questions was: As you get up that high, it obviously gets much colder. So are the glaciers on Everest, even as high as 8,000 meters (26,250 feet), which is where South Col is, retreating?”
The logic behind such calculation:
With the extracted piece of 10-meter (33-foot) long ice core, it was subjected to radiocarbon dating, similar to those undertaken on tree rings.
The core had layers of annual ice growth which were measured as per their respective thickness, culminating into a decent calculation of ice cover loss of approximately 55 meters (180 feet).
It revealed the age of ice at surface to be approximately 2,000 years old, which indicated how the ice that might have adorned the glacier in past two millennia could not be traced and was gone.
Inference led this change to be traced back to 1990s, meaning that the ice thinned out nearly 80 times faster as compared to its formation.
“I have noticed since first going to the Himalayas 20 years ago that many of the glaciers in and around the Everest area have changed quite a bit. The Khumbu Icefall has changed quite a lot over those years as well, so it is not only the highest of glaciers, but seemingly all of them”, as per the National Geographic.
Threats melting Ice coupled with Global Warming:
A process called sublimation has contributed greatly in accelerating the ice loss. This causes the snow and ice to evaporate without its conversion to a liquid (water) phase.
Sublimation requires cold and dry climatic conditions along with bundle of sunlight and strong winds, which prevail particularly at high altitudes.
Snow possessing high albedo or reflectivity continues to sustain as it deflects and not absorbs, most of the solar radiation back into the atmosphere but upon melting, reduced albedo triggers a cycle of change.
“If you lose the fresh snow, the ice is darker itself and just absorbs more solar radiation, so melting and sublimation appears more intense and the ice loss increases.”
“And now, we have the evidence that even the highest glacier on the highest mountain in the world is rapidly losing its ice. So yes, it’s a real wake-up call.”