Himalayan glaciers melting twice as fast in last 15 years
The Himalayan glaciers are melting rapidly, which is quite alarming. A study on the condition of glaciers has claimed that the melting speed has doubled in the last two decades. Himalaya’s six hundred and fifty glaciers are in crisis due to continuous increase in temperature. Concern has also been raised in the Rajya Sabha. Congress leader, former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh told in the Rajya Sabha that nearly 10,000 glaciers of the Himalayan region, including Siachen and Gangotri, have been constantly melting.
A satellite survey and a US report said that the rate of melting glaciers in the past 15 years has doubled. This is the reason that the water level of rivers coming out of the Himalayan region has increased and this is a very worrisome situation, because in due course of time, water conservation will also increase.
A team that assesses the impact of global warming on the glaciers of the Himalayas has found that between 2000 and 2016 glaciers have an average of 800 million tonnes of snow melting each year. On average, 400 million tonnes of ice melted every year in the previous 25 years, from 1975 to 2000, but the speed of melting glaciers has doubled in the next decade and a half. Now the question arises, how long will the entire Himalayan range of glaciers melt in such conditions? And what will be the dangerous consequences in the coming time?
Damage to the Earth in seven ways
To capture Earth’s photographs, the US had sent detective satellite space in the 70’s and 80’s. According to the research done by changing their pictures into 3D module, glaciers of the Himalayan region were found reduced by 10 inches every year from 1975 to 25 years. They are falling on average by 20 inches between 2000 and 2016. According to this research report published in the Science Advance Journal, about 800 million tonnes of water is being lost every year.
Increase in Himalaya temperature
Researchers at Columbia University’s Institute of Finance have found that the temperature of the Himalayan region spread over more than two thousand kilometers has increased by more than one degree. Because of this the speed of melting glaciers has doubled. The researchers studied these satellite images of 40 years, with the analysis of NASA and Japanese space agency JAXA latest data, and found out how the Himalayan area is changing and how the 650 glaciers are threatned.
Two-thirds of glaciers will melt in 80 years
If global climate effort being run in the wake of the threat of global warming fail then, the two-thirds of the Himalayan region’s glaciers will have melted by 2100. One can also understand the horrors of this danger that the ambitious Parisian agreement to deal with global warming is aimed at ending the global warming by one-and-a-half degrees by the end of this century, but even after doing so the temperature would have risen by 2.1 degree.
The result will be that two-thirds of the Himalayan glaciers will be melted and the population of about two billion people, depending on those areas will be in crisis.
