{"id":20004115,"date":"2012-07-19T13:46:05","date_gmt":"2012-07-19T13:46:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thethirdpole.net\/?p=4115"},"modified":"2012-07-19T13:46:05","modified_gmt":"2012-07-19T13:46:05","slug":"majority-of-tibetan-glaciers-melting-at-accelerated-pace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/majority-of-tibetan-glaciers-melting-at-accelerated-pace\/","title":{"rendered":"Majority of Tibetan glaciers melting at accelerated pace"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The most comprehensive survey of glaciers on the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Tibetan_Plateau\">Tibetan Plateau<\/a>\u00a0and surrounding areas has found that the majority of glaciers there are in rapid retreat \u2013 and over the past 30 years the rate has been increasing.<\/p>\n<p>Yao Tandong, a glaciologist at the <a href=\"http:\/\/english.itpcas.cas.cn\/\">Chinese Academy of \u00a0Sciences&#8217; Institute of Tibetan Research<\/a> in Beijing, and his colleagues analysed satellite data and field measurements of 15 glaciers for decades and published their findings in\u00a0<em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/nclimate\/journal\/vaop\/ncurrent\/full\/nclimate1580.html\">Nature Climate Change<\/a><\/em> this week. However, as previous studies have shown, there is\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.treehugger.com\/natural-sciences\/most-himalayan-glaciers-may-be-retreating-but-half-of-western-ones-are-advancing.html\">significant regional variability<\/a>, with glaciers in the Himalayas are retreating faster on average than those in the Karakoram and the Pamir.<\/p>\n<p>The reason for the variation in glacier behaviour lies in local weather conditions: \u201cTemperature rise is important,\u201d says Yao Tandong. \u201cBut its effects on glaciers also depend on climate regimes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn places dominated by the westerlies [the prevailing winds from Europe], such as the Karakoram and the Pamir plateau, glaciers gain their mass mostly from winter snow, and so are less affected by warming because temperatures in winter are still below zero. In the eastern and central Himalayas, however, it snows mainly during monsoon season, and a slight increase in summer temperatures can affect glaciers drastically,\u201d explained an article published in <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/news\/tibetan-glaciers-shrinking-rapidly-1.11010?WT.ec_id=NEWS-20120717\">Nature<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>In the past few decades, the Indian monsoon has been getting weaker. By contrast, the westerlies are getting stronger. \u201cThis explains why most glaciers that are either stable or advancing are in the Karakoram or the Pamir plateau,\u201d says Yao.<\/p>\n<p>The study also raises questions over data published earlier this year by the <a href=\"http:\/\/digitaljournal.com\/article\/319512\">Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite mission<\/a>, which suggested\u00a0that high-altitude Asian glaciers on the whole are losing ice only one-tenth as fast as previously estimated and that glaciers on the Tibetan plateau are actually growing.<\/p>\n<p>Critics argue that the GRACE measurements taken were taken over too short a time to capture the impact of climate change \u00ad\u2013 a period of seven years. \u00a0Yao asserts that the satellite is not suited to studying ice changes in the third pole region: \u201cAs the GRACE satellites can only feel the gravitational pull and can\u2019t tell the difference between ice and liquid water, they may have mistaken expanding glacial lakes for increases in glacier mass.\u201d Glacial lakes on the plateau have increased by about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/topic\/Renewable_Energy_and_Space_Power\/post\/Himalayian_Glaciers_and_Global_Climate_Change\">26% since the 1970s<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The study highlights the complexity of glacier responses in the region and the importance of on-the-ground measurements. Current estimates suggest there are about 12,000 to 15,000 glaciers in theHimalayasand about 5,000 in the Karakoram. But of these thousands of glaciers, only 15 have been measured on the ground to see if they are gaining or losing ice overall.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The most comprehensive survey of glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau and surrounding areas has found that the majority of glaciers are retreating \u2013 and the rate is increasing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":581,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[761],"tags":[519,20000022],"hashtags":[],"country":[20000110,20000111],"class_list":["post-20004115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climate","tag-climate-impacts","tag-himalayas","country-china","country-india"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v26.0) - 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