Melting glaciers threaten millions

Melting of snow on the world's tallest peak, the Mount Everest, has increased dramatically between 2002 and 2005 with receding of glaciers in Hindu-Kush Himalayan region having doubled in the last 20 years. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Dec 6, 2011, 24:43:00 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, Durban

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Melting of snow on the world's tallest peak, the Mount Everest, has increased dramatically between 2002 and 2005 with receding of glaciers in Hindu-Kush Himalayan region having doubled in the last 20 years.

A first comprehensive study of 54,000 glaciers covering 60,000 sq kilometers -- bigger than area of United Kingdom --- by United Nations supported International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) says that the glaciers were melting in both central and eastern Himalayas.

"Country specific studies have found that depletion of glacial area over the past 30 years was 22 % in Bhutan, 21 % in Nepal and about 15 % in India," the report said. Mount Everest has witnessed a faster rate of the glacial melt between 2002 and 2005.

But, global warming was having bigger impact on clean glaciers of the Tibetan pleateau, which recorded faster rate of retreating than the glaciers of the rugged central Himayalan region. It is because the glaciers in the Central Himalayan belt are covered in debris, which provide insulation to glaciers, thereby slowing down the melting process.

The Hindu Kush Himalayan region has about 30 % of the world's glaciers and also referred as third pole, after North and South poles.

The study based on satellite maps of glaciers also reports huge ecological and survival implications for 1.3 billion people who live in basins of rivers originating from Himalayan glaciers.

"Two major land use systems in the region are changing," the report said. In mountain forests, tree lines and species are shifting to higher elevations, and species already living at the highest elevations may have nowhere to go. For humans, there is a risk of outburst of huge glacial lakes discovered during the study and lesser water for livelihood when the glaciers recede beyong a limit. "Changes in the seasonality of flows in river basins supplied by melt water from snow and ice are also predicted," the report said.

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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