An overview of the glacier from Rakaposhi mountain on July 4, 2007, seen from Minapin, Hunza, Northwest Frontier Province, Pakistan. (Paula Bronstein /Getty Images)
The study, which was published in the Nature’s Climate Change journal, analyzed more than three decades of satellite and field measurements of over 7,000 glaciers in the Himalayas. The region has the most glaciers outside of the polar regions and is often referred to as the Third Pole. These glaciers feed the Indus, Brahmaputra, and the Ganges rivers, and also supply water to around 1.4 billion people in Asia.
The study states that with the acceleration of the melting of glaciers, major rivers would have unsustainable water supplies, causing flooding and other problems for people living downstream.
Yao’s colleague, Lonnie Thompson of Ohio State University, told United Nations’ news service IRIN, “for the glaciers studied, approximately 9 percent of the area of ice that was present in the early 1970s had disappeared by the early 2000s. Where we had decadal information, we could show that the rate of retreat had accelerated.”
Thompson said that the glaciers are not only losing area, but also volume.
“Thus, we expect to see the area of ice loss to accelerate in the near future if these conditions hold, so it is very hard to predict when the glacier will actually disappear,” he said.
Yao stressed that while temperature rise is important, the glaciers are also affected by monsoon and the westerlies, the prevailing winds from Europe.
In recent years, the Indian monsoon has weakened while the westerlies have strengthened. In the Karakoram and the Pamir plateau, the westerlies provide snow to the glaciers, while the central and eastern Himalayas get their snow during the monsoon season.
