Glacier ice melts Himalayas According to a new study published in Nature Geoscience, about 6.5% subsidence between 2000 and 2020 and 10% in the central Himalayas may occur.
Although the difference in mass loss estimates may not seem like much, the finding is important because lake-terminated glaciers comprise about 25% of the Himalayan glacier area. Tobias BalchStudy co-author and professor A Graz University of Technology in austria
Such improvements in estimates may be particularly important for the Western Himalayas and the Karakoram, where the glaciers have the largest extents the lake As expected, the study said.
The study looked at a particular type of glacier: those that terminate in lakes or bodies of water. Glacier lakes in the Himalayas and other high mountain areas are increasing due to rising temperatures.
For this study, an international team of scientists used satellite data and formulas to estimate the volume change of Himalayan glacial lakes between 1990 and 2020 and thus quantify the mass loss occurring at the bottom of the lake as the submerged portion of the lake. Ice turns into water. They then cross-checked their results with field measurements of 16 glacial lakes.
The study found that the number of glacial lakes increased by about 47% between 2000 and 2020, or an increase of 179 lakes per decade. Lakes have increased by 33% and lake volume by 42% during the same period. The expanding glacial lake resulted in the loss of about 2.7 gigatons of underwater ice, scientists calculated, adding up to the total ice loss figure.
Most of these “lake-terminating” glaciers are located in the Central Himalayas, Eastern Himalayas and Nyainkentangla Ranges. Tibet. These regions also have the greatest underestimation of ice loss, the study found, as glacial lakes grew.
Although the difference in mass loss estimates may not seem like much, the finding is important because lake-terminated glaciers comprise about 25% of the Himalayan glacier area. Tobias BalchStudy co-author and professor A Graz University of Technology in austria
Such improvements in estimates may be particularly important for the Western Himalayas and the Karakoram, where the glaciers have the largest extents the lake As expected, the study said.
The study looked at a particular type of glacier: those that terminate in lakes or bodies of water. Glacier lakes in the Himalayas and other high mountain areas are increasing due to rising temperatures.
For this study, an international team of scientists used satellite data and formulas to estimate the volume change of Himalayan glacial lakes between 1990 and 2020 and thus quantify the mass loss occurring at the bottom of the lake as the submerged portion of the lake. Ice turns into water. They then cross-checked their results with field measurements of 16 glacial lakes.
The study found that the number of glacial lakes increased by about 47% between 2000 and 2020, or an increase of 179 lakes per decade. Lakes have increased by 33% and lake volume by 42% during the same period. The expanding glacial lake resulted in the loss of about 2.7 gigatons of underwater ice, scientists calculated, adding up to the total ice loss figure.
Most of these “lake-terminating” glaciers are located in the Central Himalayas, Eastern Himalayas and Nyainkentangla Ranges. Tibet. These regions also have the greatest underestimation of ice loss, the study found, as glacial lakes grew.
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