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Neven

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Himalayan glaciers
« on: November 26, 2015, 04:29:37 PM »
There wasn't a topic yet for this specific subject (I think), and this work that has just been published might be a good topic opener:

Quote
Revealing glacier flow and surge dynamics from animated satellite image sequences: examples from the Karakoram

F. Paul
Department of Geography, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

Abstract. Although animated images are very popular on the internet, they have so far found only limited use for glaciological applications. With long time series of satellite images becoming increasingly available and glaciers being well recognized for their rapid changes and variable flow dynamics, animated sequences of multiple satellite images reveal glacier dynamics in a time-lapse mode, making the otherwise slow changes of glacier movement visible and understandable to the wider public. For this study, animated image sequences were created for four regions in the central Karakoram mountain range over a 25-year time period (1990–2015) from freely available image quick-looks of orthorectified Landsat scenes. The animations play automatically in a web browser and reveal highly complex patterns of glacier flow and surge dynamics that are difficult to obtain by other methods. In contrast to other regions, surging glaciers in the Karakoram are often small (10 km2 or less), steep, debris-free, and advance for several years to decades at relatively low annual rates (about 100 m a−1). These characteristics overlap with those of non-surge-type glaciers, making a clear identification difficult. However, as in other regions, the surging glaciers in the central Karakoram also show sudden increases of flow velocity and mass waves travelling down glacier. The surges of individual glaciers are generally out of phase, indicating a limited climatic control on their dynamics. On the other hand, nearly all other glaciers in the region are either stable or slightly advancing, indicating balanced or even positive mass budgets over the past few decades.

The Cryosphere

And EGU press release here (where the animations can be viewed)
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budmantis

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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #1 on: August 24, 2016, 07:04:40 AM »
Neven: I know this goes back almost a year but I found the information you posted here to be quite interesting. It seems the Karakorum range glaciers are keeping close to equilibrium, with no significant loss of mass balance. The time lapse of the Baltoro glacier was great.

Espen

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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #2 on: September 01, 2016, 07:16:58 PM »
Animated glacier images, that must be a something really new ? ;)
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budmantis

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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #3 on: September 01, 2016, 07:44:51 PM »
Animated glacier images, that must be a something really new ? ;)

Quite! Still in the development stage, I guess.

skanky

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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #4 on: September 07, 2016, 10:26:54 AM »
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On July 17, 2016, a huge stream of ice and rock tumbled down a narrow valley in the Aru Range of Tibet. When the ice stopped moving, it had spread a 30-meter-thick pile of debris across 10 square kilometers. Nine people, 350 sheep, and 110 yaks in the remote village of Dungru were killed during the avalanche.
The massive debris field makes this one of the largest ice avalanches ever recorded. The only event of a comparable size was a 2002 avalanche from Kolka Glacier in in the Caucasus , explained Andreas Kääb, a glaciologist at the University of Oslo.
A multispectral imager on the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 satellite captured an image of the debris field on July 21, 2016. The Operational Land Imager, a similar instrument on Landsat 8, acquired an image on June 24, 2016, that shows the same area before the avalanche.
The cause of the avalanche is unclear. “This is new territory scientifically,” said Kääb. “It is unknown why an entire glacier tongue would shear off like this. We would not have thought this was even possible before Kolka happened.”

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=88677&eocn=home&eoci=iotd_readmore

budmantis

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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #5 on: September 08, 2016, 06:34:18 AM »
Skanky, great post! I think the Aru mountains are in the northern part of the Tibetan plateau. That glacier must have lost more than half its mass in the avalanche.

RoxTheGeologist

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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #6 on: September 08, 2016, 08:19:49 PM »
Skanky, great post! I think the Aru mountains are in the northern part of the Tibetan plateau. That glacier must have lost more than half its mass in the avalanche.

What's worrying for me is that this mechanism might apply to much larger glaciers, such as those comprising the Greenland ice sheet. That would create a rather sudden change in sea level, probably with a decent sized tidal wave.

budmantis

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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #7 on: September 10, 2016, 04:07:44 PM »
Skanky, great post! I think the Aru mountains are in the northern part of the Tibetan plateau. That glacier must have lost more than half its mass in the avalanche.

What's worrying for me is that this mechanism might apply to much larger glaciers, such as those comprising the Greenland ice sheet. That would create a rather sudden change in sea level, probably with a decent sized tidal wave.

Rox, check out this link. On a limited scale it does address your question.

https://weather.com/science/environment/news/greenland-glacier-zachariae-isstrom-melting

solartim27

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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #8 on: October 27, 2016, 09:51:56 PM »
Second landslide next to the first one from above.  Pictures in other post, or click the link:
http://earthsky.org/earth/2nd-massive-ice-avalanche-in-tibet
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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #9 on: October 28, 2016, 11:35:34 AM »
It took a while after skankys post for me to make the connection, but some while ago I read an article about how in the Alps[Swiss] the north face of some mountains which had been assumed to be solid rock were actually being held together by long frozen ice. As the ice thawed whole rock faces collapsed, is that what we're seeing here?
« Last Edit: October 29, 2016, 12:00:42 PM by johnm33 »

skanky

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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #10 on: October 28, 2016, 10:58:26 PM »
« Last Edit: October 31, 2016, 11:21:23 PM by skanky »

budmantis

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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #11 on: October 31, 2016, 05:59:21 AM »
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-37797559

"Nepal drains dangerous Everest lake".

"Nepal army says it has finished draining a dangerous glacial lake near Mt. Everest to a safe level".

oren

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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #12 on: October 31, 2016, 10:40:32 AM »
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-37797559

"Nepal drains dangerous Everest lake".

"Nepal army says it has finished draining a dangerous glacial lake near Mt. Everest to a safe level".
Interesting. The scale of the problem is huge: Imja is one of thousands of glacial lakes in the Himalayas. Work on building the outlet took six months under tough conditions, and water release took 2 more months. They now plan to replicate the process to other glacial lakes. I am guessing budget constraints will prevent a complete fix to all lakes at risk, as happens in most places (levees, seawalls, etc.).

Archimid

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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #13 on: October 31, 2016, 05:17:40 PM »
Noah's ark, Gilgamesh's epic, the lost city of Atlantis, they could have been victims of glacial lake melt at the beginning of the Holocene. It the arctic did become ice free, it would have warmed the planet very fast, which would have melt the enormous glaciers in the northern hemisphere and cause flooding much worse that we see this year. I wonder how the world population was affected during those events.
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oren

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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #14 on: October 31, 2016, 08:00:08 PM »
Noah's ark, Gilgamesh's epic, the lost city of Atlantis, they could have been victims of glacial lake melt at the beginning of the Holocene. It the arctic did become ice free, it would have warmed the planet very fast, which would have melt the enormous glaciers in the northern hemisphere and cause flooding much worse that we see this year. I wonder how the world population was affected during those events.

Atlantis is not considered a historical account. Noah's ark (like many biblical tales) is derived from other near east flood myths, possibly with a bit of history in them but not necessarily. If these myths are historical, they may derive from the flooding of both the Persian Gulf (and the southern end of Mesopotamian settlements) and the Black Sea (and the northern end of Anatolian settlements) around 6000 BC. A glacial melt lake is most probably not the reason for these myths.

Archimid

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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #15 on: November 01, 2016, 12:17:59 AM »
The way I look at it, there have been many lost cities of Atlantis, many Noahs and many Gilgamesh over time. I'm pretty sure that as the world warmed at the beginning of the Holocene and the last remaining glaciers disappeared, many human coastal settlements were lost, some of them relatively advanced for their time.  It can happen very fast. For example, if the arctic sea ice did disappear at the beginning of the Holocene, then temperatures would have shot up quite a bit melting glaciers at a much faster rate than today. I Imagine that water vapor would have increased too. That could have caused great floods that no human alive has ever seen. Also a high tide after a year with particularly fast glacier melt, could completely submerge vulnerable ancient coastal civilizations.

These events stayed on the collective memory of humanity in the form of Atlantis, Noah and Gilgamesh. I don't think we will see these events at the scale of early Holocene simply because there is much less ice today that there was then.
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budmantis

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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #16 on: November 01, 2016, 03:07:42 AM »
You're probably right Archimid, although the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet would raise sea levels significantly.

skanky

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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #17 on: December 14, 2016, 11:00:20 AM »
Using declassified spy satellite images to determine longer term glacier changes: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-38307176

solartim27

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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #18 on: August 09, 2017, 09:24:16 PM »
Karakoram Vortex sounds like a good band name.

Quote
A summer ‘vortex’ of cold air over the Karakoram mountain range is causing the glaciers in the region to grow in spite of global warming, scientists have shown.

Publishing their findings today in Nature Climate Change, the team from Newcastle University, UK, have identified a large scale circulation system – or vortex – centred over the Karakoram, a large mountain range spanning the borders of Pakistan, India, and China.

In winter, the vortex affects the temperature over the whole 2,000 kilometre mountain range, but in the summer the vortex contracts and has an effect only over the Karakoram and western Pamir.

This induces an anomalous cooling in summer which is different to the warming seen over the rest of the Himalaya.
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/press/news/2017/08/karakoramanomaly/
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vox_mundi

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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #19 on: November 21, 2018, 05:01:26 PM »
'Warm' Ice in World's Highest Glacier
https://phys.org/news/2018-11-ice-world-highest-glacier.html

Ice temperatures inside the world's highest glacier on the slopes of Mount Everest are warmer than expected and especially vulnerable to future climate change, warn glaciologists.

In 2017 the EverDrill project research team led by Dr. Duncan Quincey from the University of Leeds became the first to successfully drill into Khumbu Glacier in Nepal and record temperatures deep below the surface layer.

The resulting measurement and analysis, published this week in Scientific Reports, revealed a minimum ice temperature of only −3.3 °C, with even the coldest ice being a full 2 °C warmer than the mean annual air temperature.
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"'Warm' ice is particularly vulnerable to climate change because even small increases in temperature can trigger melting.
These results indicate that high-elevation Himalayan glaciers are vulnerable to even minor atmospheric warming and will be especially sensitive to future climate warming.

Study lead author Katie Miles from Aberystwyth University explained that the Khumbu Glacier's vulnerability may have serious consequences for the lifespan and amount of meltwater runoff in the coming decades and it will be important to determine if other glaciers in the region have similar internal characteristics to Khumbu.

Katie E. Miles et al. Polythermal structure of a Himalayan debris-covered glacier revealed by borehole thermometry, Scientific Reports (2018)


Ice temperature compared to mean annual air temperature (MAAT)
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wili

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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #20 on: February 04, 2019, 01:48:26 PM »
A third of Himalayan ice cap doomed, finds 'shocking' report

Even radical climate change action won’t save glaciers, endangering 2 billion people


Quote
At least a third of the huge ice fields in Asia’s towering mountain chain are doomed to melt due to climate change, according to a landmark new report, with serious consequences for almost 2 billion people.

Even if carbon emissions are dramatically and rapidly cut and succeed in limiting global warming to 1.5C, 36% of the glaciers along in the Hindu Kush and Himalaya range will have gone by 2100. If emissions are not cut, the loss soars to two-thirds, the report found.

The glaciers are a critical water store for the 250 million people who live in the Hindu Kush-Himalaya (HKH) region, and 1.65 billion people rely on the great rivers that flow from the peaks into India, Pakistan, China and other nations.

“This is the climate crisis you haven’t heard of,” said Philippus Wester of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (Icimod), who led the report. “In the best of possible worlds, if we get really ambitious [in tackling climate change], even then we will lose one-third of the glaciers and be in trouble. That for us was the shocking finding.”...

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/04/a-third-of-himalayan-ice-cap-doomed-finds-shocking-report
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vox_mundi

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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #22 on: August 01, 2019, 05:13:20 PM »
Decades-Old Pollutants Melting Out of Himalayan Glaciers
https://phys.org/news/2019-08-decades-old-pollutants-himalayan-glaciers.html



Melting Himalayan glaciers are releasing decades of accumulated pollutants into downstream ecosystems, according to a new study.

The new research in AGU's Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres finds chemicals used in pesticides that have been accumulating in glaciers and ice sheets around the world since the 1940s are being released as Himalayan glaciers melt as a result of climate change.

These pollutants are winding up in Himalayan lakes, potentially impacting aquatic life and bioaccumulating in fish at levels that may be toxic for human consumption.

... Pollutants can travel long distances through the atmosphere on dust particles and water molecules. Previous studies have shown that Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets contain high levels of pollutants that traveled thousands of kilometers before dropping onto ice and being incorporated into glaciers. This phenomenon of high levels of contamination far from sources of pollution, known as the Arctic paradox, is also seen in high mountain glaciers like those in the Himalaya.

The Nam Co Basin, on the central Tibetan Plateau in the Himalaya between the Gangdise-Nyainqȇntanglha mountains to the north and the Nyainqȇntanglha range to the south, is home to more than 300 glaciers that covered nearly 200 square kilometers in 2010. But the ice is melting: Between 1999 and 2015, the total volume of ice in the Nam Co Basin decreased by nearly 20 percent.

By testing ice, snow and water samples collected in the Nam Co Basin, Wang and colleagues found glaciers in the region are releasing around 1,342 milligrams of PFAAs per day into Lake Nam Co. They detected levels as high as 2,171 picograms per liter in the lake. Under these conditions, the estimated total annual input of PFAAs into Lake Nam Co is approximately 1.81 kilograms per year.

PFAAs are known for having a very long lifespan. The chemicals don't regularly biodegrade and are readily passed through organisms and ecosystems, while being continually concentrated through various biogeochemical processes, ... "The bioaccumulation potential for these chemicals is extraordinary," Miner said.

"This [Nam Co Basin] water also feeds directly into the water resources in India," she added.

Quote
... "The Earth is a closed system. Everything released on the Earth, stays somewhere on the Earth"

Mengke Chen et al. Release of Perfluoroalkyl Substances From Melting Glacier of the Tibetan Plateau: Insights Into the Impact of Global Warming on the Cycling of Emerging Pollutants, Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres (2019).
« Last Edit: August 01, 2019, 05:34:17 PM by vox_mundi »
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kassy

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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #23 on: August 01, 2019, 05:50:13 PM »
Ah nice pure mountain water...  >:(
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vox_mundi

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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #24 on: December 31, 2019, 04:20:38 PM »
Simulations Show Thousands of Lakes in Himalaya Mountains at Risk of Flooding Due to Global Warming
https://phys.org/news/2019-12-simulations-thousands-lakes-himalaya-mountains.html

Three researchers with the University of Potsdam report that thousands of natural lakes in the Himalayas are at risk of bursting their moraines due to global warming and causing flooding downriver. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Georg Veh, Oliver Korup and Ariane Walz describe simulations they ran on lake models and what they showed.

... To see what might happen as higher temperatures melt Himalaya glaciers, the researchers carried out 5.4 billion simulations based on lake models developed with topographic and satellite data. After running the simulations, they report that they found approximately 5,000 lakes in the Himalayas are likely unstable due to moraine weaknesses. They also noted that those lakes with the highest risk of a glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) were the ones with the largest volume of water. And they found that risks from flooding due to glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) in the near future were three times higher in the eastern parts of the Himalayas. They note that prior research has shown that up to two-thirds of Himalayan glaciers are going to disappear in the next decade, indicating that a lot of water buildup in lakes is going to pose a serious threat to those living downstream.

Georg Veh et al. Hazard from Himalayan glacier lake outburst floods, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2019)
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Tor Bejnar

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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #25 on: January 02, 2020, 08:16:19 PM »
 December 29, 2019 - From a Glacier's Perspective
Mount Everest Region Glaciers December 2019 Limited Accumulation Area
Quote
The winter monsoon for the Himalaya is a dry cold period with limited new snow accumulation.
Therefore, this is a suitable time to determine where the end-of-the-melting season snowlines lie. 
Quote
The Landsat image of Dec. 11, 2019 highlights the snowline at 5500-6200 m on glaciers around Mount Everest.  This high of an elevation indicates the accumulation area of the glaciers is too small to sustain the current ablation areas.
which means
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The high snowlines indicate an accumulation area that is too small to maintain these glaciers, which drives continued retreat ...
The work of several referenced authors yields:
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The key take away is warming temperatures lead to mass balance losses, which leads to a velocity slow down, and both will generate ongoing retreat.
One tidbit I found interesting:
Quote
[M]ass balance loss for lake-terminating glaciers [is] significantly higher.
Arctic ice is healthy for children and other living things because "we cannot negotiate with the melting point of ice"

gerontocrat

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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #26 on: January 02, 2020, 09:48:49 PM »
One tidbit I found interesting:
Quote
[M]ass balance loss for lake-terminating glaciers [is] significantly higher.
For many people your tidbit might be more alarming than interesting.

https://phys.org/news/2019-12-simulations-thousands-lakes-himalaya-mountains.html
Simulations show thousands of lakes in Himalaya Mountains at risk of flooding due to global warming
Quote
Three researchers with the University of Potsdam report that thousands of natural lakes in the Himalayas are at risk of bursting their moraines due to global warming and causing flooding downriver. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Georg Veh, Oliver Korup and Ariane Walz describe simulations they ran on lake models and what they showed.

As climate change continues unabated, scientists are trying to predict what might happen around the world. The region of the Himalayas has already seen some dramatic changes—as glaciers melt, natural lakes have formed—85 of them in the Sikkim Himalaya between 2003 and 2010. Such lakes form naturally as water makes its way down the mountains, pooling in crevasses—they can present a danger to those living downstream when one of their borders is a natural levee called a moraine. These barriers are made of loose rock and dirt held together by ice. If the ice melts, the moraine gives way, resulting in what the researchers describe as glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs), several of which have already occurred in recent decades. In this new effort, the researchers sought to learn more about what might happen in coming decades as the glaciers continue to melt, putting ever more pressure on moraines.

To see what might happen as higher temperatures melt Himalaya glaciers, the researchers carried out 5.4 billion simulations based on lake models developed with topographic and satellite data. After running the simulations, they report that they found approximately 5,000 lakes in the Himalayas are likely unstable due to moraine weaknesses. They also noted that those lakes with the highest risk of a GLOF were the ones with the largest volume of water. And they found that risks from flooding due to GLOFs in the near future were three times higher in the eastern parts of the Himalayas. They note that prior research has shown that up to two-thirds of Himalayan glaciers are going to disappear in the next decade, indicating that a lot of water buildup in lakes is going to pose a serious threat to those living downstream.

Also
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095927319301501#f0015
Potentially dangerous glacial lakes across the Tibetan Plateau revealed using a large-scale automated assessment approach

from which the image attached....
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kassy

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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #27 on: November 05, 2020, 04:40:24 PM »
"Tarballs" Detected in Himalayan Atmosphere

...

 Now, researchers reporting in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology Letters have detected light-absorbing “tarballs” in the Himalayan atmosphere, which could contribute to glacial melt.

Burning biomass or fossil fuels releases light-absorbing, carbonaceous particles that can deposit on snow and ice, possibly hastening the melting of glaciers. Previous research has shown that one type of particle, called black carbon, can be transported long distances by wind to the Himalayan atmosphere. But much less is known about the presence of brown carbon, a particle that can form tarballs –– small, viscous spheres consisting of carbon, oxygen and small amounts of nitrogen, sulfur and potassium. Weijun Li and colleagues wanted to see what types of individual aerosol particles were present in air samples taken at a remote, high-altitude research station on the northern slope of the Himalayas.


Using electron microscopy, the researchers unexpectedly found that about 28% of the thousands of particles in the air samples from the Himalayan research station were tarballs, and the percentage increased on days with elevated levels of pollution. Analyzing wind patterns and satellite data revealed that a dense array of active fire spots, corresponding to large-scale wheat-residue burning on the Indo-Gangetic Plain, occurred along the pathways of air masses that reached the Himalayan research station during sampling. Through modeling calculations, the team estimated that tarballs deposited on glacial surfaces could contribute a significant warming effect. As a result, future climate models should consider the long-range transport of tarballs to the Himalayas, the researchers say.

https://www.technologynetworks.com/analysis/news/tarballs-detected-in-himalayan-atmosphere-342433
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kassy

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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #28 on: November 10, 2020, 09:34:21 PM »
Chinese glaciers melting at 'shocking' pace, scientists say

Glaciers in China's bleak Qilian mountains are disappearing at a shocking rate as global warming brings unpredictable change and raises the prospect of crippling, long-term water shortages, scientists say.

The largest glacier in the 800-kilometer (500-mile) mountain chain on the arid northeastern edge of the Tibetan plateau has retreated about 450 meters since the 1950s, when researchers set up China's first monitoring station to study it.
The 20-square kilometer glacier, known as Laohugou No. 12, is criss-crossed by rivulets of water down its craggy, grit-blown surface. It has shrunk by about 7% since measurements began, with melting accelerating in recent years, scientists say.
Equally alarming is the loss of thickness, with about 13 meters (42 feet) of ice disappearing as temperatures have risen, said Qin Xiang, the director at the monitoring station.
"The speed that this glacier has been shrinking is really shocking," Qin told Reuters on a recent visit to the spartan station in a frozen, treeless world, where he and a small team of researchers track the changes.
The Tibetan plateau is known as the world's Third Pole for the amount of ice long locked in the high-altitude wilderness.

But since the 1950s, average temperatures in the area have risen about 1.5 Celsius, Qin said, and with no sign of an end to warming, the outlook is grim for the 2,684 glaciers in the Qilian range.
Across the mountains, glacier retreat was 50% faster in 1990-2010 than it was from 1956 to 1990, data from the China Academy of Sciences shows.
"When I first came here in 2005, the glacier was around that point there where the river bends," Qin said, pointing to where the rock-strewn slopes of the Laohugou valley channel the winding river to lower ground.
The flow of water in a stream near the terminus of the Laohugou No. 12 runoff is about double what it was 60 years ago, Qin said.
Further downstream, near Dunhuang, once a major junction on the ancient Silk Road, water flowing out of the mountains has formed a lake in the desert for the first time in 300 years, state media reported.

https://us.cnn.com/2020/11/09/china/china-glaciers-melting-climate-change-intl-hnk/index.html
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Espen

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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #29 on: February 07, 2021, 12:22:58 PM »
Tehri Dam India overflow from glacier melt, notice how the contributary rivers grow over the years, the construction of the dam was initially started in 1978, the image from 2021 is January 27:

Please click on image to enlarge and animate!
« Last Edit: February 07, 2021, 12:50:22 PM by Espen »
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Espen

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vox_mundi

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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #31 on: February 07, 2021, 04:14:42 PM »
150 feared dead as glacier crashes into dam in northern Indiahttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/07/150-feared-dead-as-glacier-crashes-into-dam-in-northern-india



As many as 150 people were feared dead in northern India after a Himalayan glacier broke and crashed into a dam early on Sunday, with floods forcing the evacuation of villages downstream.

“The actual number has not been confirmed yet,” but 100 to 150 people were feared dead, Om Prakash, the chief secretary of Uttarakhand state where the incident occurred, said.

A witness reported a wall of dust, rock and water as an avalanche roared down a river valley.

“It came very fast, there was no time to alert anyone,” said Sanjay Singh Rana, who lives on the upper reaches of Raini village. “I felt that even we would be swept away.”

Locals feared that people working at a nearby hydropower project had been swept away, as well as villagers roaming near the river looking for firewood or grazing their cattle, Rana said. “We have no idea how many people are missing.”
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

kassy

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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #32 on: December 20, 2021, 05:52:20 PM »
Himalayan glaciers melting at ‘exceptional rate’


The accelerating melting of the Himalayan glaciers threatens the water supply of millions of people in Asia, new research warns.

The study, led by the University of Leeds, concludes that over recent decades the Himalayan glaciers have lost ice ten times more quickly over the last few decades than on average since the last major glacier expansion 400-700 years ago, a period known as the Little Ice Age.

The study also reveals that Himalayan glaciers are shrinking far more rapidly than glaciers in other parts of the world – a rate of loss the researchers describe as “exceptional”.

The paper, which is published in Scientific Reports, made a reconstruction of the size and ice surfaces of 14,798 Himalayan glaciers during the Little Ice Age. The researchers calculate that the glaciers have lost around 40 per cent of their area – shrinking from a peak of 28,000 km2 to around 19,600 km2 today.

During that period they have also lost between 390 km3 and 586 km3 of ice – the equivalent of all the ice contained today in the central European Alps, the Caucasus, and Scandinavia combined. The water released through that melting has raised sea levels across the world by between 0.92 mm and 1.38 mm, the team calculates.

Dr Jonathan Carrivick, corresponding author and Deputy Head of the University of Leeds School of Geography, said: “Our findings clearly show that ice is now being lost from Himalayan glaciers at a rate that is at least ten times higher than  the average rate  over past centuries. This acceleration in the rate of loss has only emerged within the last few decades, and coincides with human-induced climate change.”

...

The Himalayan glaciers are generally losing mass faster in the eastern regions – taking in east Nepal and Bhutan north of the main divide. The study suggests this variation is probably due to differences in geographical features on the two sides of the mountain range and their interaction with the atmosphere – resulting in different weather patterns.

Himalayan glaciers are also declining faster where they end in lakes, which have several warming effects, rather than where they end on land. The number and size of these lakes are increasing so continued acceleration in mass loss can be expected. 

Similarly, glaciers which have significant amounts of natural debris upon their surfaces are also losing mass more quickly: they contributed around 46.5% of total volume loss despite making up only around 7.5% of the total number of glaciers.

...

Co-author Dr Simon Cook, Senior Lecturer in Geography and Environmental Science at the University of Dundee, said: “People in the region are already seeing changes that are beyond anything witnessed for centuries. This research is just the latest confirmation that those changes are accelerating and that they will have a significant impact on entire nations and regions.”

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/938235
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kassy

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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #33 on: February 03, 2022, 04:12:50 PM »
Mt. Everest’s highest glacier is a sentinel for accelerating ice loss

Abstract
Mountain glacier systems are decreasing in volume worldwide yet relatively little is known about their upper reaches (>5000 m). Here we show, based on the world’s highest ice core and highest automatic weather stations, the significant and increasing role that melting and sublimation have on the mass loss of even Mt. Everest’s highest glacier (South Col Glacier, 8020 m). Estimated contemporary thinning rates approaching ~2 m a−1 water equivalent (w.e.) indicate several decades of accumulation may be lost on an annual basis now that glacier ice has been exposed. These results identify extreme sensitivity to glacier surface type for high altitude Himalayan ice masses and forewarn of rapidly emerging impacts as Mt. Everest’s highest glacier appears destined for rapid retreat.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-022-00230-0
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kassy

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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #34 on: September 02, 2022, 08:38:52 AM »
Melting glaciers in Pakistan have tripled output this year

Pakistan is home to more glaciers than anywhere in the world outside the polar regions, but as the climate warms, it’s becoming more vulnerable to sudden outbursts of melting glacier water that have the power to bring widespread destruction to its people.

The country’s chief meteorologist has warned that this year alone, Pakistan has seen triple the usual amount of glacial lake outbursts — a sudden release of water from a lake fed by glacier melt — that can cause catastrophic flooding.

Sardar Sarfaraz from Pakistan’s Meterological Department said Thursday that there have been 16 such incidents in the country’s northern Gilgit-Baltistan region in 2022, compared with just five or six seen in previous years.

...

https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2022/09/01/melting-glaciers-in-pakistan-have-tripled-output-this-year/
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Andre Koelewijn

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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #35 on: January 21, 2023, 10:27:54 AM »
Enhanced Effect of Mining Dust Diffusion on Melting of the Adjacent Glacier: A Case Study in Xinjiang, China

Quote
Given the typical disturbances in the aqueous environment in the alpine area because of mining activities in Northwest China, a case study highlighting the enhanced effect of mining dust diffusion on the melting of the adjacent glacier is presented here. Initially, a three-dimensional numerical model of the local airflow field was established by considering the effects of both mines and glaciers using the FLUENT software. Then, the diffusion path and size range of dust particles from the mines were simulated by feeding the mining dust parameters into the above numerical model. Finally, a physical simulation experiment was performed to evaluate the influence of mining dust coverage on the glaciers. The major conclusions of this study were as follows: (1) The local airflow field in the target alpine area is controlled by the ‘heat and cold double-island effects’ formed by the mine and the glacier, and the wind circulation always takes place in a clockwise direction between the mining pit on the left and the glacier on the right. (2) In a given airflow field, there is a spread of mining dust from the mine to the glacier along the upper airflow. The arrival rates of the dust are 16.9% and 13.3% in winter and summer, respectively, and the horizontal distance of dust diffusion is inversely proportional to its particle size. (3) For an ice sample with a sectional area of 225 cm2 and a volume of 1000 mL, the melting rate increased by 4.5 mL/h with an increase of dust coverage by 10%. Furthermore, when compared with a control group without dust cover, the effect of a 28% increase in dust coverage is approximately equivalent to the effect of a 1 °C increase in temperature on the ablation speed of the glacier. The study results can provide a useful reference for the selection of mining sites and the control of mining dust diffusion in alpine regions with glaciers, thereby facilitating environmentally friendly mining in alpine regions.

https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/15/2/224

Espen

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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #36 on: January 21, 2023, 10:45:58 AM »
The result of dust from mining close to glacier sites is clearly seen in New Guinea / Puncak Jaya:

https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,2748.msg296418.html#msg296418
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kassy

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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #37 on: April 04, 2023, 04:22:59 PM »
Loss of Himalayan Glaciers ‘Larger Than Thought,’ Study Finds

The melting of Himalayan glaciers is more severe than expected, a new study has found, in the latest warning against the region’s accelerating ice loss and its far-reaching consequences, including flood risks and threats to water security.

A total of 270 million tons of lost glaciers terminating into lakes in the greater Himalaya between 2000 and 2020 was not measured in the previous estimation, an underestimation of approximately 6.5%, according to a study published in Nature Geoscience on Monday. The study, conducted by the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that the largest underestimation was 10% for the central Himalaya.

The number of proglacial lakes, which are formed by melting glaciers, increased by 47% and the amount of lake water rose by 42% in the same period, according to the study. The findings are based on measurements of volume changes in 16 major proglacial lakes between 2018 and 2021 and data collected from satellite images.

...

more on:
https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1012640
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kassy

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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #38 on: June 23, 2023, 07:33:34 AM »
New Delhi — Glaciers in the Hindu Kush region of the Himalaya mountains are melting at the fastest rate ever and could shed as much as 80% of their ice by the end of this century if global warming continues unchecked, a group of international scientists warned in an alarming new report.

The study says the melting of the glaciers will directly impact billions of people in Asia — causing floods, landslides, avalanches and food shortages as farmland is inundated. Indirectly, the melting of such a vast reserve of fresh water could impact countries as far away as the United States, even the whole of humanity, according to the report by the Nepal-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD).

The academic paper warns the ice and snow reserves in the Hindu Kush Himalayas (HKH) region are melting at an "unprecedented" rate and that the environmental changes to the sensitive region are "largely irreversible."

...

The ICIMOD report lays out three potential scenarios for the glaciers of the HKH: If there is a 1.5-2 degree Celsius increase in the Earth's average temperature above pre-industrial levels, the glaciers will lose 30% to 50% of their ice volume by 2100. If the global temperature rises by 3 degrees Celsius, the glaciers could lose 75% of their ice and, with a 4-degree rise, the researchers say there will be a loss of up to 80% of the ice in the HKH.

"These projections are of very high confidence as we say in the scientific language," Dr. Philippus Wester, the ICIMOD's Chief Scientist on Water Resources Management and the lead editor of the report, told CBS News. "In layman's language, it means we have no doubt whatsoever that at 2 degrees Celsius global warming, we will lose 50% of the glacial ice mass in the region."

The report notes that the Himalayan glaciers lost ice at a rate 65% faster between 2010 and 2019 than over the previous decade (2001-2010).

"This is a lot, this is alarming," Wester told CBS News."On human time scales, we have never seen glacial melt this rapid, this fast… this is unprecedented."

---

"The people who are losing their livelihoods, of which there are 2 billion people — that's a quarter of the world's population — where will they go? They will have to go and find safer places and we will have to offer those safer places for them to live," Koziell said.

---
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/himalaya-glaciers-melting-faster-study-warns-will-affect-us-all/
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kassy

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Re: Himalayan glaciers
« Reply #39 on: November 01, 2023, 03:57:42 PM »
Not glacier specific but it is the background rate:

The United Nations claimed that Nepal's snow-capped mountains have lost over one-third of their ice in the last 30 years due to global warming.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made the pronouncement during his visit to the area surrounding Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain.

"Stop The Madness"
According to Guterres, the pace of glacier melts in Nepal, which is situated between two big carbon emitters-India and China-has increased by 65% in the last decade compared to the preceding one.

...

Climbers returning from Everest have stated that the mountain has become drier and grayer than before.

British climber Kenton Cool, who made his 17th ascent to the world's highest peak last Monday, described Mount Everest as "dry and rocky" and is losing snow.

The 49-year-old mountain climber, who first climbed the 8,849-metre (29,032 foot) peak in 2004, says the massive mountain appears to be drying out.

"That shows how dry the mountain is now ... I think that is because of the lack of precipitation, a lack of snowfall. It could be global warming or any environmental change of some sort," he said.

...

https://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/59208/20231031/nepal-s-mountain-lost-one-third-ice-30-years-due.htm
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