New study finds faster melting due to human activity

NEW DELHI: Mountain glaciers around the world are melting at an unprecedented rate, according to a new UN Environment Programme report released on Tuesday. The glaciers melted from 2000 to 2005 at 1.6 times the average loss rate of the 1990s and three times that of the 1980s, with much of the change attributable to human-induced climate change, the report said.

"This is the most comprehensive and up-to-date information on glaciers worldwide and as such underlines the rapid changes occurring on the planet," UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Executive Director Achim Steiner said, while noting the importance of glaciers as sources for many rivers upon which people depend for drinking water, agriculture and industrial purposes.

A total of 30 reference glaciers monitored by the Swiss-based World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) lost 66 centimetres in thickness on average in 2005, the report says. With mountain glaciers typically only tens of metres thick, this meant many would disappear within decades if the trend continued, said WGMS director Wilfried Haeberli. “With the scenarios predicted, we will enter conditions which we have not seen in the past 10,000 years, and perhaps conditions which mankind has never experienced,” he said.

The International commission for snow and ice had disclosed earlier that glaciers in the Himalayas are receding at a faster rate than anywhere else. The commission had warned that at this rate, most of them are likely to disappear by the year 2035.

This would reduce the Ganga, Sutlej and Yamuna to seasonal rivers. The process brings other threats, particularly to Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, such as landslides, erosion, and floods. The recent flashflood in the Sutlej, which resulted in heavy losses to life and property, is feared to have been caused either due to a cloud burst or breach of a lake in the upper reaches. The Manali and Kulu areas suffered widespread damage due to a flashflood in the Beas river and its tributaries a few years ago, when the headquarters of the Snow and Avalanche Study Establishment (SASE), which predicts such disasters, was itself devastated. The melting of glaciers is creating lakes which are increasing in size at a rapid rate.

The UNEP says the Gangotri glacier was 25 km long when measured in the 1930s and has now shrunk to less than 20 km. The Dokriani Bamak glacier in the Himalayas has receded half a mile since 1990. Research indicates that glaciers in the Himalayas are retreating at an average rate of 30 metres a year, compared with earlier rates of 18 metres a year between 1935 and 1999, and 7 metres a year between 1842 and 1935.

According to Prakash Rao of the Worldwide Fund for Nature, milder winters, longer summers, severe heat waves and an increasing number of cyclones are the effects of climate change noticeable to people. But the serious effects are taking place in remote regions of the planet where glaciers are melting at a fast pace.