Xinhua: Chinese scientists said Wednesday glaciers that serve as water sources on the Qinghai-Tibet plateau are melting at a "worrisome speed," having receded 196 square km over the past nearly 40 years. The decline is equal to about one-fourth of the area of New York City.Xin Yuanhong, senior engineer in charge of a three-year field study of glaciers in the region, said glaciers at the headwaters of the Yangtze, China's longest river, cover 1,051 square km, down from 1,247 square km in 1971. "The reduction means more than 989 million cubic meters of water melted away," said Xin, whose team surveyed the glaciers between June 2005 and August 2008. That much water would fill Beijing's largest reservoir.
The team found the glacier tongue of Yuzhu Peak of Kunlun Mountain fell by 1,500 meters over the past nearly 40 years. The retreat rate is close to that of the Quelccaya Glacier in Peru, the world's largest tropical ice mass. The eastern side of the glaciers in the Tanggula Mountain Pass saw the fastest melt rate, with the front receding 265 m annually. The average annual retreat speed was 7.57 m when compared with the figures for 1970. Xin attributed the accelerated melting to global warming…
Kunlun Mountain, shot by B_cool from SIN, Singapore, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License
No comments:
Post a Comment