Himalayan glaciers are melting at furious rate
According to recent findings, glaciers in the (Himalayan glaciers are melting) Himalayas are melting at an extraordinary rate, as the vast ice layer has been shrinking 10 times faster in the past 40 years than in the past seven centuries.
The Himalayan mountain range is the third largest in the world in terms of glaciers, after Antarctica and the Arctic. That is why it is also called the ‘Third Pole’.
The study also found that Himalayan glaciers are melting more rapidly than larger glaciers in New Zealand, Greenland and Patagonia.
Identified Causes: Increase in global temperature due to greenhouse gas emissions, regional climate factors (such as changes in the South Asian monsoon), etc.
Effect of melting of Himalayan glaciers:
- Avalanches, floods (in India, Nepal and Bhutan), the threat of agricultural disruption to people in South Asia, the threat of floods and related problems faced by coastal communities, etc.
- As a related concept, the Karakoram anomaly is called glacial stability or anomalous growth in the central Karakoram Range, in contrast to glacial retreat in other adjacent mountain ranges of the Himalayas and other mountain ranges of the world.
Source – The Hindu
