Himalayan Glacier Massive Loss Reaches 65%

According to a recent study, the Himalayan Glacier has lost a significant amount of mass, amounting to 65%, which is ten times more than the initial estimate of 6.5%.

Planetary survival is at stake right now, as The Weather Channel puts it. For the complex web of life to continue to exist as different parts of the world struggle with the effects of global warming, precise information on how significant environmental elements are faring under the effects of the crisis is crucial.

A study looking at the scenario in the Greater Himalayas reveals that a sizable portion of data on rising sea levels, biodiversity loss, and melting glaciers has been misinterpreted for decades.

Massive Loss in the Himalayan Glacier

According to recent studies, Himalayan glaciers that liquefy into lakes are losing a lot more ice than previously thought. There has been a 6.5% underestimation of the precise loss of these Greater Himalayan lake-terminating glaciers.

According to this study, the Central Himalayas, which have lost 10% more glaciers, exhibit the greatest underestimation. Particularly, an enormous 65% mass loss in the parent glaciers of Galong Co, located in the Poiqu River basin of the Central Himalayas, went unnoticed.

Proglacial lakes in the area have grown by 47% over the last two decades. As glaciers meltwater pools, lakes begin to form behind the ice walls. Compared to the 1990s, they now take up 33% more space and can hold 42% more melted ice.

An estimated 2.7 gigatons of mass have been lost as a result of the proglacial lake expansion, which is more than 1,000 times the global elephant population.

These errors resulted from satellite imaging's limitations, which prevented it from measuring underwater glacial shifts where ice was now being replaced by water. Instead, it could only assess the surface water on lakes.

In 2021, a study published in the journal National Library of Medicine stated that there has been an accelerated ice loss in the Himalayan Glaciers since the Little Ice Age with the loss reaching 40% at that time.

Impacts of Oversight

This oversight could have a significant impact on projections of glacial retreat in the area in the future, affecting not only the region's water budget but also how extreme weather events and natural disasters like floods and landslides will affect it.

Additionally, as the Himalayan glaciers continue to melt more quickly than anticipated, the long-term ice loss from lake-terminating glaciers may have a significant impact on the total glacial loss all through this century.

Zhang Guoqing, the lead author of the study, said that understanding the effects of local water resources and floods caused by glacial lake outbursts is significantly impacted by these findings.

The study also emphasizes the significance of comprehending the processes that cause glacier melting and accounting for errors in the massive loss of lake-terminating glaciers worldwide. It has been understated between 2000 and 2020 by about 12%, which means that for the past 20 years, about 211.5 gigatons of mass loss have gone unaccounted for.

Yao Tandong, the co-author of the study, said that researchers can more accurately predict the future availability of water resources in the vulnerable mountain region by more accurately factoring for glacier mass loss, The Weather Channel reports.

This study by Guoqing, Tandong, and several other colleagues was recently published in the journal Nature Geoscience.