Himalayan glacier loss in past 20 years equals weight of 570 million elephants
2 min read . Updated: 05 Apr 2023, 09:42 PM IST
Premium- Study reveals the glacier loss has been most in the Central Himalayas, where the glacial lakes developed most rapidly between 2000 to 2020
Himalayas are losing large chunk of glacial ice. The glacial topography of the young-fold mountains has seen huge change in the past twenty years. For the first time researchers have been able to map the complete extent of mass loss of glaciers in the Himalayas.
In a research jointly conducted by UK's University of St Andrews, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Graz University of Technology in Austria, and Carnegie Mellon University, it has been understood that the loss of glaciers, including below the surface of the topography, can be equated with the eight of around 570 million elephants put together.
The study has been published in the journal Nature Geoscience, states that the largest underestimation of the loss of glacial cover was in the central Himalayas. The study reveals that in the central Himalayas glacial lake growth has been the most rapid.
The lake-terminating glaciers have been underestimated due to the inability of satellites to see glacier changes occurring underwater. This loss was not considered by previous studies as the utilized satellite data can only measure the lake water surface but not the ice underwater replaced by water.
"Our estimates reduce uncertainties in total glacier mass loss, provide important data for glacio-hydrological models, and therefore also support the water resources management in this sensitive mountain region," researchers said in the paper. A particularly interesting case is Galong Co in this region, with a high underestimation of 65%.
From 2000 to 2020, proglacial lakes in the region increased by 47 per cent in number, 33 per cent in area, and 42 per cent in volume. This expansion resulted in an estimated glacier mass loss of around 2.7 Gt equivalent to 570 million elephants or over 1000 times the total number of elephants living in the world.
Researchers highlighted the need to understand the mechanisms driving glacier mass loss and the underestimated mass loss of lake-terminating glaciers globally.