Tibetan plateau warmest in 2000 years, poses risk of natural disasters

Anu Passary in Tech Times: Concerns surrounding global warming are constantly growing and fears of environmentalists are not unwarranted, as a new study reveals that the Tibetan plateau has been the warmest in the last 2000 years.

The Tibetan plateau's glacier supplies water to several million people in Asia and the study conducted by the Chinese Academy of Sciences' (CAS) Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research reveals that the plateau had been warmer in the last five decades when compared to any period in the past two millennia. "Over the past 50 years, the rate of temperature rise has been double the average global level," according to the report on the website of Science and Technology Daily per Reuters.

There's no silver lining either as researchers opine that the plateau will get more humid and hotter with the passage of time in the coming decades. This will in turn result in the shifting of glaciers and increase in desertification.

What's worrying is that the glacier retreat may upset water supply to Asian rivers that originate in the plateau like India's Brahmaputra, China's Yangtze Kiang and Yellow River, as well as the Mekong and Salween. The hazards of natural disasters like landslides and heavy floods will likely increase because of the warmer climate.

Earlier in May 2014, scientists revealed that Tibetan glaciers had shrunk 8,000 square kms or nearly 15 percent in the last three decades. However, there is a silver lining as according to the report, the ecosystem of the Tibetan plateau (which is at an elevation of 4,500 meters) has seen an overall improvement thanks to the expansion of the forest area as well as the temperate zone. Moreover, the damage to the wetlands has reduced since 2000....

A Tibetan glacier in autumn, shot by Jan Reurink, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license 

Drones zero in on Himalayan glaciers

Shahani Singh in SciDev.net: Drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are finding a role in the study of glaciers in the rugged and remote Himalayas. Using UAVs to study the Lirung glacier in Nepal’s Langtang region, scientists from the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands, and the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Research, Kathmandu, have shown that glacial melt water generated under debris is only marginal to the total amount of water generated in the Lirung catchment.

The Lirung glacier being at a comparatively low elevation is sensitive to temperature changes and data from it can give clues to the fate of debris-covered Himalayan glaciers that are higher up, if glo
bal warming persists at projected rates, says the study, to be published in the July 2014 issue of Remote Sensing of Environment.

The UAVs collected data from sub-surface areas in the highly inaccessible, debris-covered Lirung glacier and provided imagery at a resolution superior to satellite-derived data, says Walter Immerzeel, lead author of the study and assistant professor at the department of physical geography, University of Utrecht.

...The higher melt rates in supra-glacial lakes (lakes or ponds formed on top of glaciers) and ice cliffs place emphasis on studying ‘englacial hydrology,’ or water dynamics and mass change in the internal regions of a glacier. In the future the melt rate may be connected to or created by englacial conduits and voids, the study says.

UAV technology increases the cost-effectiveness and accuracy of research as traditional methods of measuring melt rates are labour intensive, time consuming and difficult to carry out, especially on thick layers of debris.....

Imja Lake and glacier in Nepal,  shot by Daniel Alton Byers, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons 3.0 license

Youth‚ migration and climate change

The Himalayan Times: For many youth, migration represents a route to better life — whether in search of employment opportunities or for good education, many youngsters are migrating every day from Nepal. But beside these reasons, could climate change also be affecting the youth migration?

There is no clear answer as the link between youth, climate change and migration yet needs to be discovered. But few experts of climate change and migration attempted to unfold the relation between these three elements on December 18 at an interaction programme on ‘Climate Change, Youth and Migration’ held at Nepal Art Council, Babarmahal.

In the event held on the occasion of International Migrants Day, one of the speakers was water and climate change expert Ajaya Mani Dixit. Giving an instance of Rampur Khadauna, a village in Nawalparasi, he explained, “Almost half of the land area of this village is submerged in water for three months every year”. Due to this condition, “50 per cent of the youth do not stay there. In, fact no one wants to live in this village” and “it could have forced the youth from there to migrate”.

...Meanwhile, various international studies have pointed out the impacts of climate change the world will face in years to come. “Though Nepal will also face the consequences, there is no scientific base to explain how it will affect Nepal, youth and their migration as we lack study,” Dixit stated....

A street scene in Kathmandu, Nepal, shot by DARIO SEVERI, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Sikkim government gives fresh lease of life to dying Himalayan springs, lakes

Truthdive via ANI: The Government of Sikkim has given a fresh lease of life to its dying mountain springs and lakes with an objective to ensure water security in the Himalayan region. About 65,000 rural households in Sikkim are hugely dependent on these springs for drinking water and irrigation needs throughout the year.

Funded under the MGNREGA national flagship programme, the state government launched the ” Dhara Vikas Scheme”, or “Spring Shed Development Scheme” in 2008 in active collaboration with WWF-India, People’s Science Institute, Dehradun, ACWADAM, Pune and others by using rainwater harvesting, geohydrology and GIS techniques.

Principles of geohydrology, watershed and GIS were integrated to conceptualize this new initiative which was launched through the Rural Management and Development Department to revive and restore 50 Himalayan water springs and four lakes mainly located in drought-prone areas.

Factors responsible for the drying up of these springs and lakes were climate changes, population increase, erratic rainfall and unrestricted developmental activity, all of which created a hydrological imbalance. An independent assessment by IISc, Bangalore observed that the Dhara Vikas Scheme has shown encouraging results and has led to a significant 15 per cent enhancement in the spring discharge...

Crow's Lake is one of hundreds in Northern Sikkim. Shot by Carsten.nebel, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license

Floods spur mountain study

Jane Qiu in Nature: A snapshot of weather-related disasters in the Himalayas suggests that things are amiss on the roof of the world.

This spring, for example, western Nepal was hit by a severe drought, leading to crop failures and exacerbating an already serious food crisis. In June, the same region was devastated by its worst floods in 50 years, caused by unusually intense monsoon rains. The deluge wreaked havoc in the northern Indian states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, killing at least 5,700 people and causing an estimated loss of US$2 billion.

After decades of such climate-related incidents, the eight member countries of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), a regional body, have agreed that enough is enough. On Monday, they launched a three-year study that aims to comprehensively assess the current state of the Hindu Kush Himalayas, the enormous area sustained by the world’s highest mountain range, and to make recommendations on how it might be safeguarded and developed.

And none too soon, say many scientists. As climate change tightens its grip, “disasters will become increasingly frequent”, says Vinod Tewari, a geologist at the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology in Dehradun, India. The Himalayas are getting warmer at a rate of 0.6 °C each decade, three times the global average. Rainfall there is increasing at a rate of 65 millimetres per decade and the monsoon season is getting wetter. However, winters are getting drier...

A panoramic view of Rudraprayag Sangam on June 21, 2013. The Alaknanda river flowing in from the right, while Mandakini joins from the top (North). The image is almost unrecognizable compared to what it was like before 17 June 2013. There used to be a footbridge (jhula) over the mandakini that was washed away in the 2013 Uttarakhand floods. Shot by Mukerjee, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Flooding in Uttarakhand shows why India needs to take environmental security more seriously

Dhanasree Jarayam in New Security Beat: The disastrous flooding in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand this summer, which claimed more than 6,000 lives, was the outcome of a changing climate and poorly planned development. It was also another case in point of the increasing importance of environmental security in India – especially for the military.

India’s armed forces emerged as heroes from the tragedy. At a time when the civil administration failed to implement some of the most basic disaster management policies, the military came to the rescue by carrying out the largest aerial search and rescue operation in the country’s history. Air Force pilots flew more than 1,400 sorties, rescuing more than 12,000 people in total, a spokeswoman told The New York Times.

With a spurt in the number of extreme weather events and natural disasters in the sub-continent, coupled with the incompetence of civil administrations, there is perhaps a need for defining a clearer role for the military, in disaster management in particular and environmental security policy and planning in general.

The unpredictability of India’s summer monsoon rains, like those that struck Uttarakhand, is not a new phenomenon; however, with rising temperatures and continued development, the consequences of that unpredictability has become a major concern.

This summer’s disaster, called the “Himalayan Tsunami” by some, was initially thought to be a glacial lake outburst flood. Later reports suggested the huge amount of water that surged downstream was caused by a breach in the boundary of a small lake that formed due to a huge landslide and heavy rainfall upstream. The monsoon rains that created the landslide and back-flooding reached Uttarakhand almost two weeks earlier than normal, when the rivers had heavier flows due to seasonal glacial melting....

From 2012 flash flooding in Uttarakhand, shot by European Commission DG ECHO, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

China and India 'water grab' dams put ecology of Himalayas in danger

John Vidal in the Guardian (UK) blog on global development: The future of the world's most famous mountain range could be endangered by a vast dam-building project, as a risky regional race for water resources takes place in Asia.

New academic research shows that India, Nepal, Bhutan and Pakistan are engaged in a huge "water grab" in the Himalayas, as they seek new sources of electricity to power their economies. Taken together, the countries have plans for more than 400 hydro dams which, if built, could together provide more than 160,000MW of electricity – three times more than the UK uses.

In addition, China has plans for around 100 dams to generate a similar amount of power from major rivers rising in Tibet. A further 60 or more dams are being planned for the Mekong river which also rises in Tibet and flows south through south-east Asia.

Most of the Himalayan rivers have been relatively untouched by dams near their sources. Now the two great Asian powers, India and China, are rushing to harness them as they cut through some of the world's deepest valleys. Many of the proposed dams would be among the tallest in the world, able to generate more than 4,000MW, as much as the Hoover dam on the Colorado river in the US...

The Tehri Dam on the Bhagirathi River in the Himalayas, shot by Lingaraj, G. J., Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Shrinking glaciers won't affect South Asia water availability: study

Space Daily via AFP: Glacier systems that feed two key rivers in South Asia will badly retreat this century, but demands for water are still likely to be met, a study predicted on Sunday. The health of glaciers in the Himalayas is a closely-watched issue, as they supply vital meltwater to a region facing surging population growth and rising demands for food.

Scientists agree that the onward march of the greenhouse effect will shrink the glaciers, but there is little consensus on the volume and rate of ice loss and the impact on water availability. In a fresh attempt at clarity, Dutch scientists led by Walter Immerzeel at Utrecht University carried out a high-tech computer simulation of what could happen to two glacial watersheds -- the Baltoro, which drains into the Indus, and the Langtang, which feeds the Ganges -- in the light of two scenarios for global warming, comprising a modest and a strong rise in temperatures.

The two glaciers will shrink badly: by 2100, they will lose roughly half their volume under the higher warming scenario. But, at least as far as this century is concerned, water users will not experience scarcity, in part because the extra meltwater will help meet rising needs. "In both cases, glaciers will retreat but net glacier melt runoff is on a rising limb at least until 2050," according to the paper in Nature Geoscience.

"In combination with a positive change in precipitation, water availability this century is not likely to decline. We conclude that river basins that depend on monsoon rains and glacier melt will continue to sustain the increasing water demands expected in this area."

Other studies have suggested a reduction in future runoff in the Indus and Ganges basins, but these have looked at the region on a large scale. The new study is a more useful prediction because it deals with regional hydrology in much finer detail, say its authors....

Lake beside Gosainkunda Lake (or Bhairev Kunda -- a comment disputes the caption), Langtang, Nepal. Shot by Yosarian, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license

6,000 missing in India flood presumed dead

Voice of America: Nearly 6,000 people listed as missing after last month's heavy flooding in northern India are now presumed dead.

Authorities in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand had previously declared only 600 dead after flash floods and landslides struck the area destroying entire villages and leaving many stranded.

Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna said Monday that those missing would be presumed dead and that their families will receive compensation of about $8,300.

The disaster affected not only residents of Uttarakhand but thousands of pilgrims and tourists who travel there yearly to visit remote Hindu religious sites.

India is accustomed to flooding from monsoon rains, but this year's downpours arrived a week ahead of schedule, sending people scrambling for high ground as rivers spilled over their banks....

Damage from 2012 flash floods in Uttarakhand, shot by European Commission DG ECHO, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Mount Everest's glaciers shrinking at increasing rate, say researchers

Jason Burke in the Guardian (UK): Global warming is melting snow and ice on the world's highest mountain at an accelerating rate, researchers have claimed.

A study by a team led by a Nepali scientist at the University of Milan has found that glaciers on or around Mount Everest have shrunk by 13% in the last 50 years with the snow line 180 metres higher than it was 50 years ago. The glaciers are disappearing faster every year, it says.

The 60th anniversary of the first ascent of the 8,848 metre (29,028ft) peak by Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay will be celebrated next week.

The researchers say they suspect that the decline of snow and ice in the Everest region is a result of changes in global climate caused by human-generated greenhouse gases. However, they have not yet established a firm connection, Sudeep Thakuri, who led the team, said.

The landscape around Mount Everest has changed dramatically since the world's highest mountain was first climbed. Mountaineers now report more rock and less snow and ice on well known routes. The ends of glaciers around the peak have also retreated by an average of 400 meters since 1962, the new research found, and some smaller glaciers were now nearly half the size they were in the 1960s.

The researchers used satellite imagery of the peak and the 713-square-mile Sagarmatha national park around the mountain as well as long-term meteorological data....

The Drang-drung glacier in Ladakh, shot by Wildchild826, public domain

Scientists find extensive glacial retreat in Mount Everest region

A press release from the American Geophysical Union: Researchers taking a new look at the snow and ice covering Mount Everest and the national park that surrounds it are finding abundant evidence that the world’s tallest peak is shedding its frozen cloak. The scientists have also been studying temperature and precipitation trends in the area and found that the Everest region has been warming while snowfall has been declining since the early 1990s.

Members of the team conducting these studies will present their findings on May 14 at the Meeting of the Americas in Cancun, Mexico – a scientific conference organized and co-sponsored by the American Geophysical Union.

Glaciers in the Mount Everest region have shrunk by 13 percent in the last 50 years and the snowline has shifted upward by 180 meters (590 feet), according to Sudeep Thakuri, who is leading the research as part of his PhD graduate studies at the University of Milan in Italy.

Glaciers smaller than one square kilometer are disappearing the fastest and have experienced a 43 percent decrease in surface area since the 1960s. Because the glaciers are melting faster than they are replenished by ice and snow, they are revealing rocks and debris that were previously hidden deep under the ice.  These debris-covered sections of the glaciers have increased by about 17 percent since the 1960s, according to Thakuri. The ends of the glaciers have also retreated by an average of 400 meters since 1962, his team found.

The researchers suspect that the decline of snow and ice in the Everest region is from human-generated greenhouse gases altering global climate. However, they have not yet established a firm connection between the mountains’ changes and climate change, Thakuri said.

...“The Himalayan glaciers and ice caps are considered a water tower for Asia since they store and supply water downstream during the dry season,” said Thakuri. “Downstream populations are dependent on the melt water for agriculture, drinking, and power production.”...

The north face of Everest, shot by Luca Galuzzi (Lucag), Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license

What happens when Asia's 'water tower' dries up?

Coco Liu in EENews.net: After photographing Black Dragon Lake here for eight years, He Jiaxin knows of more places where he can get the lake to mirror the majesty of its surrounding mountains than anyone else. But this year, he has a problem: The lake has disappeared.

...Lijiang is hardly alone. Similar situations are happening across other parts of Yunnan province, which usually has more rain than half of China's regions. But it has experienced extremely low rainfall for the past three years. In the first quarter of this year, Yunnan's average rainfall dropped by 70 percent, indicating the start of the drought's fourth consecutive year, according to the water resources department in the region.

As national demand for Yunnan's hydroelectricity and other products keeps rising, the region is losing one of its most abundant resources -- water -- to produce them. The province is scrambling to adopt measures that would ease water stress, with mixed results. Meanwhile, its fast-growing population and economy are adding more water security problems.

... On the provincial level, the drought has already baked millions of acres of farmland over the past three years, leaving many farmers with nothing to harvest. The financial disaster has spread to businesses that trade and process agricultural goods. For instance, many rubber factories in Yunnan reportedly shut down due to insufficient raw materials. This, combined with declining revenue in other industries, has caused a direct economic loss of about $4.2 billion in Yunnan since the drought started in 2009, local media have reported....

Black Dragon Lake in wetter times, shot by Gisling, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license 

What happens in Nepal doesn’t stay in Nepal

Shabbir Mir in the Express Tribune (Pakistan): Life had been good for Sunyali Majhi, a farmer in Dolalghat, a small village about 50 kilometres from landlocked Nepal’s Kathmandu. She harvested enough rice to sell and feed her brood at home. But the portions have been getting smaller, the financial squeeze tighter.

...“Over the last decade or so, rainfall has become increasingly unpredictable,” she explains, estimating a 40 per cent drop in what the earth produced. The vagaries of Nature were to blame. “When the crops needed water, it did not rain… and then suddenly it rained cats and dogs.” This erratic behaviour slowly eroded farmer confidence. Like Sunyali, a vast majority of Nepali women making a living from the land in the landlocked country of 30 million people.

Over the last few years, Nepal has been seeing more and more extreme temperatures as weather patterns have grown unpredictable. Winters are drier and summer monsoons more delayed. For years, the farmers have lived in harmony with nature in the mountainous villages. And while they may not have necessarily contributed much to climate change, they are certainly feeling its effects now.

.... “There is no doubt there’s been a change in rainfall patterns in Nepal over the past 30 years or so,” says Dr Bed Mani of the department of Environmental Sciences at Kathmandu University. “The volume of precipitation in a year is the same but the duration of such events has changed,” he explains. “It now rains at lesser intervals but with more intensity.” Farming in Nepal largely relies on monsoon rainfall because the irrigation system covers only a small area of the country.

Inconsistent rainfall and changes in climate are having an impact not just in Nepal but throughout the Himalayan region. Similar events are already taking place in Pakistan. Professor Ahmed Nafees at Karakoram International University says that the mountainous regions are more likely to be affected by the growing intensity in rainfall as this often triggers landslides and avalanches. “Deforestation is a constant problem in the mountainous regions and when there is a heavy downpour there is nothing to hold the soil,” says Nafees. “It results in death and destruction.”....

Wind erosion in Kalopani, Nepal, shot by Till Niermann, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Nepalis adapt to changing climate

Kieran Cook in Scientific American via Daily Climate: Environmental resource conflict – or the potential for it – is never far away in the Himalayas.

In the west of the region, arguments between Pakistan and India over vital water resources in areas bordering the two countries continue. In the east tensions are rising as India expresses concerns about a spate of planned dam-building projects by China on rivers flowing into Indian territory, particularly on the mighty Brahmaputra. Meanwhile Nepal and the north Indian state of Bihar accuse each other of mismanaging water resources that straddle the border.

Regional cooperation is limited and, in many areas, non-existent. In some countries data on vital environmental factors, such as river flows and management, falls into the category of national security and is closely guarded.

The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, founded in the early 1980s and based in Kathmandu, Nepal's capital, is the only intergovernmental body gathering cross-border environmental information and monitoring climate change across a region stretching from the mountains of the Hindu Kush and Afghanistan in the west to Yunnan in southwest China in the east.

It's an area described as a climate "hot spot," with temperatures in many parts rising faster than the global average. In an ambitious project, the center has been gathering information on communities' attitudes and responses to climate change and socio-economic factors affecting their livelihoods. More than 6,000 households – mainly in mountain areas – have responded to a detailed questionnaire….

Pisang village in Nepal, shot by Solundir, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Himalayan glaciers will shrink by almost 10 percent, even if temperatures hold steady

Science Daily: Come rain or shine, or even snow, some glaciers of the Himalayas will continue shrinking for many years to come.

The forecast by Brigham Young University geology professor Summer Rupper comes after her research on Bhutan, a region in the bull's-eye of the monsoonal Himalayas. Published in Geophysical Research Letters, Rupper's most conservative findings indicate that even if climate remained steady, almost 10 percent of Bhutan's glaciers would vanish within the next few decades. What's more, the amount of melt water coming off these glaciers could drop by 30 percent.

Rupper says increasing temperatures are just one culprit behind glacier retreat. A number of climate factors such as wind, humidity, precipitation and evaporation can affect how glaciers behave. With some Bhutanese glaciers as long as 13 miles, an imbalance in any of these areas can take them decades to completely respond. "These particular glaciers have seen so much warming in the past few decades that they're currently playing lots of catch up," Rupper explains.

In fact, snowfall rates in Bhutan would need to almost double to avoid glacier retreat, but it's not a likely scenario because warmer temperatures lead to rainfall instead of snow. If glaciers continue to lose more water than they gain, the combination of more rain and more glacial melt will increase the probability of flooding -- which can be devastating to neighboring villages.

"Much of the world's population is just downstream of the Himalayas," Rupper points out. "A lot of culture and history could be lost, not just for Bhutan but for neighboring nations facing the same risks."...

The glacial lakes of Bhutan, NASA image

Himalayan glaciers retreating at accelerated rate in some regions but not others; consequences for water supply remain unclear, says new report

National Academy of Sciences News: Glaciers in the eastern and central regions of the Himalayas appear to be retreating at accelerating rates, similar to those in other areas of the world, while glaciers in the western Himalayas are more stable and could be growing, says a new report from the National Research Council.

The report examines how changes to glaciers in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan region, which covers eight countries across Asia, could affect the area's river systems, water supplies, and the South Asian population.  The mountains in the region form the headwaters of several major river systems -- including the Ganges, Mekong, Yangtze, and Yellow rivers -- which serve as sources of drinking water and irrigation supplies for roughly 1.5 billion people.  

The entire Himalayan climate is changing, but how climate change will impact specific places remains unclear, said the committee that wrote the report.  The eastern Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau are warming, and the trend is more pronounced at higher elevations.  Models suggest that desert dust and black carbon, a component of soot, could contribute to the rapid atmospheric warming, accelerated snowpack melting, and glacier retreat.

While glacier melt contributes water to the region's rivers and streams, retreating glaciers over the next several decades are unlikely to cause significant change in water availability at lower elevations, which depend primarily on monsoon precipitation and snowmelt, the committee said.  Variations in water supplies in those areas are more likely to come from extensive extraction of groundwater resources, population growth, and shifts in water-use patterns.  However, if the current rate of retreat continues, high elevation areas could have altered seasonal and temporal water flow in some river basins.  The effects of glacier retreat would become evident during the dry season, particularly in the west where glacial melt is more important to the river systems.  Nevertheless, shifts in the location, intensity, and variability of both rain and snow will likely have a greater impact on regional water supplies than glacier retreat will. 

Melting of glacial ice could play an important role in maintaining water security during times of drought or similar climate extremes, the committee noted.  During the 2003 European drought, glacial melt contributions to the Danube River in August were about three times greater than the 100-year average.  Water stored as glacial ice could serve as the Himalayan region's hydrologic "insurance," adding to streams and rivers when it is most needed.  Although retreating glaciers would provide more meltwater in the short term, the loss of glacier "insurance" could become problematic over the long term....

Makalu in the Himalayas, shot by Ben Tubby, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Kashmir’s melting glaciers may cut ice with skeptics

Athar Parvaiz in IPS: ...That the weather is warming over Kashmir is not news for climate scientists who have shown in several studies that the glaciers in the vast Hindu Kush-Karakoram-Himalaya (HKKH) region – called the world’s ‘third pole’ – are melting and receding at an increasing pace. In the latest of these studies, European scientists led by Andreas Kaab of the department of geosciences, University of Oslo, have shown that glacial melt is worse in the Kashmir Himalayas than in other regions of the HKKH.

Kaab’s findings, published in the Aug. 23 edition of ‘Nature’, suggest that Kashmir’s glaciers may be receding by as much as half-a-metre annually, presenting an immediate threat to the rivers that  feed into the Indus basin. “Glaciers are among the best indicators of terrestrial climate variability,” said Kaab in the study. “They contribute importantly to water resources in many mountainous regions and are a major contributor to global sea-level rise.” Kaab said that while there is a paucity of glacier data in the HKKH region, there is “indirect evidence of a complex pattern of glacial responses” to climate change.

Prof. Shakil Romshoo, who teaches geology and geophysics at Kashmir University, says that studies that he and his colleagues conducted in 2009 showed that Kashmir’s glaciers were melting at an increasing pace. “We have been saying for many years now that Kashmir’s glaciers are melting at an ever faster rate,” Romshoo told IPS. His team found that the Kolhai glacier, one of the largest in Kashmir, had shrunk to 11 sq km, losing two sq km over a period of 40 years.

Another scientific study on the Kashmir Himalayas had also shown that the snow cover over the region was on the decline. The study, led by glaciologist H. S. Negi, was published in the December 2009 issue of ‘Journal of Earth System Sciences’, a bi-monthly published in India. Negi, who is attached to the Snow and Avalanche Study Establishment of India’s defence ministry, based his findings on 20 years of remote satellite-based climatic data, covering the period 1988 – 2008. According to Negi’s findings, where total snowfall in the Kashmir valley was 1,082 cm in 2004-05, it had declined to 968 cm during 2005-2006 and reduced further to 961 cm by 2006-2007.

Kolahoi Glacier and Mt.Kolahoi. It's the tallest mountain in the Kashmir Valley. Shot by Irfanaru, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Droughts bring climate change home to Nepal farmers

Naresh Newar in IPS (from Chitwan, Nepal): Farmers in this fertile central district of south Nepal are convinced that an intense drought between May and early July that destroyed their maize crops is the result of climate change.  “Last year my farms produced over 20 quintals of maize, but this time I could barely harvest one quintal,” 60-year-old farmer Padmakanta Poudel told IPS in the remote Jutpani village of the district.

 Poudel explained that his family had taken bank a loan of over 500 dollars to invest on his maize farm. The money was spent on hiring a tractor to till the farm, the labour to sow the seeds as well as inputs such as fertilizers.

For a poor farmer in Nepal a 500-dollar loan is substantial and repayable only at harvest time. “We lost all our money and will have to pay back our debts. I pray that my rice crops will not also be destroyed,” Poudel said.

...Farmers speaking with IPS in Chitwan said that they now realise that this is the climate change they have been hearing about over radio and television.  “I had heard about climate change (Jal Wayu Paribartan in the Nepali language) but I didn’t know we would be affected by it so badly,” says Ram Chandra Chepang from the village of Shaktikhor.

...Nepal has a history of droughts but the intensity increased this year, say government experts. They, however, are yet to make scientific measurements of the intensity.     Evidence of climate change in Nepal is seen in temperatures rising by about one-tenth of a degree annually, receding glaciers and snow line and volatile monsoonal rains...

Tutemani with its single farm settlements is a cultural landscape typical for eastern Nepal. Despite the barren landscape, rice, wheat and maize is grown. The surrounding hills used to be covered in trees. Photo: Fritz Berger Etter Studio, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

‘Dirty snow’ hastens glacial melt in Himalayas

Bhrikuti Raj in IPS:  Every morning, as Gian Pietro Verza walks up the lateral moraine of the Khumbu Glacier in this Himalayan country’s north-east to take measurements, the wind makes colourful prayer flags flutter noisily. That same wind carries soot particles that are causing the snow on the mountains to melt faster.

The Italian scientist and mountaineer has been working at the Pyramid International Observatory below Mt Everest since 1987, and has seen the rapid retreat of the glaciers around him even in the last 25 years. “The ice used to come right up to there,” he says, pointing towards the jumble of boulders and gravel in the glacier. “Now it has retreated up beyond base camp.”

Agostino Da Polenza and the late professor Ardito Desio set up the Nepal Climate Observatory Pyramid (EvK2Cnr) in a unique collaboration between the Italian Research National Council and the Nepal Academy of Science and Technology, at an altitude of 5,050 metres in Lobuje.

The EvK2Cnr has been doing research into the effect of global warming on the Himalayas, and recently turned its attention to the impact of ‘black carbon’ on accelerating the melting of ice and snow. Black carbon is fine soot and ash produced by diesel exhausts, thermal power plants, brick kiln smokestacks, and forest fires, but is often confused with gaseous carbon dioxide.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), along with scientists and international research institutions, says there is evidence increased black carbon deposits on Himalayan glaciers make them absorb more sunlight, accelerating glacial and snow melt....

At the foot of Imja Glacier below Mt. Lhotse, there is now a lake where there used to be ice. Shot by Daniel Alton Byers, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

South Asia landslides 'on the rise'

Navin Singh Khadka in BBC News: Most South Asian countries are witnessing an increasing trend in landslides in recent years and scientists say extreme rainfall patterns, seismicity, and uncontrolled human activities are to blame.

Authorities have said the number of people killed and displaced and properties destroyed by the disaster are also on the upward trend.

Landslides are common in the region, particularly in the Hindu-Kush-Himalaya foothills, during monsoon that lasts for around four months until September. But, authorities say their frequency and intensity are on the rise.

"There has been an increase in the events of landslides in the region in recent years," says Mriganka Ghattak, a specialist in geological disasters with the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC's) Disaster Management Centre in Delhi.

"We have noticed the rise particularly in northern parts of India, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan and some areas of Bangladesh," said Ghattak. "Broadly the main affected areas are in the Hindu-Kush-Himalaya (HKH) region where the geological conditions are quite dynamic."...

A 2009 landslide from Typhoon Ketsana in the Philippines, shot by Susan Corpuz, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license