Climate change: Himalayan glaciers at low altitude melting at faster rate

146 glaciers in Chandra basin lost one-fifth of the estimated volume of water since 1984.

Updated on: Sep 4, 2017, 23:35:24 IST

New Delhi, Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan

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The low-altitude Himalayan glaciers are losing water at a faster pace than the ones in higher reaches due to rising temperatures creating water risk in these regions, a new study has found.

Overall spread of the glaciers might not fall but water content is likely to go down. (AFP file)

Himalayan glaciers are a huge reservoir of water that sustain lives of millions of people in India and many rivers including Ganga, Brahmaputra and Indus originate from the glacial ice. While most glaciers are melting only a few have witnessed advancement in recent decades.

A study of 146 glaciers spread over 660sq km in Chandra basin in the western Himalayas has for the first time estimated the loss of volume. This helps in understanding the behaviour of glaciers in the wake of climate change as the overall spread of the glaciers may not fall but water content may go down.

The study published in the international general Annals of Glaciology has been done by Anil V Kulkarni of the Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore. Kulkarni was previously with India Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and headed its glacier monitoring unit.

“For the first time, not only in India but globally, we have an estimate of how much volume and mass of glaciers has been lost over a period of time in Chandra basin,” Kulkarni said. “Now we can have similar estimates for other glaciers in the Himalayan region.”

The Chandra basin lost 11.1 gega-tonnes of water from 1984-2012, which is about one-fifth of the estimated volume. However, the loss in smaller and low altitude glaciers was about 67% during the period, the study found.

“I will like to caution that there is no danger of the glaciers vanishing in new future,” Kulkarni said, adding the “small ones” may not be there in the long run. The study, Kulkarni said, helps in better understanding of fresh water stored in the Himalayan glaciers and would be crucial for water resource management to implement necessary mitigation measures.

The team of researchers from different scientific institutes in India estimated mass balance of glaciers in the basin on basis of satellite data. The study covered 146 glaciers in the basin situated in Lahul-Spiti valley of Himachal Pradesh, which has witnessed an up to 2 degree temperature rise in the last century.

As per latest ISRO estimate, there are 34,919 glaciers in the Himalayan region having 75,779 sq kms of glaciated areas in Indus, Ganga and Brahmaputra river basins. The ISRO did not notice any changes in 1,752 glaciers while 18 showed advancement. The remaining are retreating on account of rising emissions and increase in debris.

Kulkarni, in another study, had said that Himalayan glaciers have retreated by about 13% in last four decades with the water loss increasing from 9 gega-tonnes per year in 1975-1985 to 20 GT/year in 2010-2015 period.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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