Himalayan Glacier Melt

Himalayan Glacier Melt

The melting glaciers of the Himalayas are India’s canaries in the coalmine. If they don’t wake up politicians and people on climate change, nothing else will.

The implications are grave. The Hindu-Kush Himalaya region stretches across Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, China, Bhutan, Nepal and Myanmar. It contains the largest mass of ice in the world after the North and South Poles and is called the ‘Third Pole’. It is home to ten major river basins and provides water for one fifth of the world’s population.

But the life-giving glaciers – the water towers of Asia – are melting. Scientists estimate that these peaks are melting at twice the rate of surface temperature and we are therefore witnessing the impact of climate change on high-altitude glaciers earlier than at other areas such as the plains.

The causes are only warming temperatures as a result of greenhouse gas emissions but also soot emissions or ‘black carbon’ from the burning of biomass such as wood, crop waste and dung.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change generated controversy earlier this year by erroneously suggesting that Himalayan glaciers could be gone by 2035. While the date was retracted, there is no doubt that glaciers are receding and at faster rates than witnessed before.

Once the melting accelerates it is projected there will be floods, death, destruction and loss of livelihoods downstream. Once the stocks of water held frozen in the glaciers have been drawn down, there will be precious little left for future generations. Precipitation in an era of warming is expected to be lower and the water security of millions will be further compromised.

The dangers of climate change and glacier melt on a region that is home to not only the largest populations in the world, but the largest number of poor people in the world means that action cannot be delayed. Unknown risks such as the dangers to the Monsoon mean that both preventative and adaptation strategies must be deployed.

The Indian government is waking up to the threat of climate change – slowly – but is hedging its bets. A discussion paper released by the Ministry for Environment and Forests in 2009 suggests that Himalayan glacier melt is cyclical and not necessarily a result of global warming.

This flies in the face of more detailed Chinese studies and analysis conducted by regional governments of Bhutan and Nepal and institutions such as ICIMOD which call for vigorous action to curtail greenhouse gas emissions and black carbon.

More recently, the Indian government has established an Indian Network of Climate Change Assessment (INCAA) to assess domestic climate impacts and is seeking to partner with China on glacier research and mountain ecosystem studies. The country’s National Action Plan on Climate Change (June 2008) also contains a section on Sustaining Himalayan Ecosystems to protect and conserve Himalayan ecosystems.

Most importantly, people across India are beginning to mobilize on the issue. Organisations, research institutes and concerned individuals are beginning to network in the Himalayan states in particular and efforts are being made to both reduce the risks to the region through mitigation strategies, as well as prepare for changes underway through adaptation strategies.