The glaciers in Nepal are morphologically different from the glaciers elsewhere. How?
Nepal has summer accumulation-type glaciers because the country receives more than 80 per cent of its precipitation during the summer. Another characteristic of the glaciers is that the ice is covered with layers of debris such as soil, sand, rocks, pebbles and even big boulders. If the thickness of the debris is more than 1 m then the melting rate of the ice is slow. If the debris is thin, 2-3 cm, then the rate of melting becomes high. The debris absorb more solar radiation as they are black or brown in colour. The energy budget on the glacier surface would be different with a little debris on the ice. These are the unique characteristics of the Himalayan glaciers in Nepal.
Has the snowfall pattern in the Nepal Himalayas changed recently?
We do not have data on snowfall for the Nepal Himalayas. What we do have is satellite data but it shows the snow cover and not the depth of the snow. We know the snow cover area is decreasing on a decadal scale. In terms of rainfall, no noticeable trend is visible. But variations are visible in terms of temperature rise. The country’s maximum temperature increased by a significant 0.0560C per year between 1971 and 2014. The minimum temperature also increased, but the rate is lower at 0.0020C per year. The rising temperature makes the Nepal Himalayas vulnerable.
In the context of increasing temperatures, another important aspect is the settling of black carbon on the glaciers which increases the rate of melting. Is it impacting glaciers in Nepal?
Esta historia es de la edición January 16, 2022 de Down To Earth.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 8500 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición January 16, 2022 de Down To Earth.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 8500 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
TURN OVER A NEW LEAF
The young leaves of pilkhan free are a worthy alternative to leafy vegetables in the spring season
The pill that's roiling US drug regulation
The hard right is challenging FDA's authority to regulate drugs with its lawsuit to ban America's most used abortion pill
FAIR PRICE
Using a calculator, Uttar Pradesh scientifically fixes fee for transporting faecal sludge to treatment plants
THE FOREVER POLLUTANT
From production to usage to disposal, plastic is a threat to those who come in its contact SIDDHARTH GHANSHYAM SINGH
Seeds from the past
For a decade,200 villages in Odisha have conserved and grown 190 indigenous rice and millet varieties with proven climate resilience
TESTING TIMES
While the world is trying to identify uniform tests to measure soil biodiversity, it still needs investment and infrastructure to make them available to all
BREAKING NEW GROUND
Soil health is typically measured by its nutrient content, by presence of elements like nitrogen and phosphorus. No country in the world measures it in terms of soil biodiversity-a counting of underground faunal populations and microorganisms.
PRIME TRIGGER
Heat stress dominates debate on the causes of a mysterious chronic kidney disease that continues to baffle health experts and is on the rise globally
Coral catastrophe
Consistent ocean heating puts global corals at risk of mass bleaching in 2024
CHIPKO A DISTANT MEMORY
Whenever a dictionary of green terms is written, no matter in what language, it will contain at least one Hindi word-Chipko, which means to hug.