Warming Triggers 'Alarming' Retreat Of Himalayan Glaciers

[Hissyspit]

Source: McClatchy Newspapers

Warming triggers `alarming' retreat of Himalayan glaciers
By Tim Johnson
McClatchy Newspapers



Bernardo De Niz/MCT
A Tibetan girl poses in front of one of the glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau.
Photo slide show - The roof top of the world is melting GO TO LINK FOR SHOW

KAROLA PASS, Tibet - The glaciers of the Himalayas store more ice than anywhere on Earth except for the polar regions and Alaska, and the steady flow of water from their melting icepacks fills seven of the mightiest rivers of Asia.

Now, due to global warming and related changes in the monsoons and trade winds, the glaciers are retreating at a startling rate, and scientists say the ancient icepacks could nearly disappear within one or two generations. Curiously, there's little sense of crisis in some of the mountainous areas. Indeed, global warming is making the lives of some high-altitude dwellers a little less severe.

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But for people living in the watershed of the Himalayas and other nearby mountain ranges along the Tibetan Plateau, glacial melt could have catastrophic consequences.

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In a stark forecast, the United Nations body studying global warming, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, warned in early May that the glaciers in the world's highest mountain range could vanish within three decades.

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Read more: http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/17212911.htm

[Subdivisions]

1. Who here does not believe that as interesting as these times

are, they will be nothing compared to what our children will witness.

[Hissyspit]

2. .

[nam78_two]

3. K&R.nt

[FloridaJudy]

4. K&R n/t

[alfredo]

5. China will become a graveyard, so will India. Much of the US

west depends on water from the snow pack.

[OneBlueSky]

6. wonder what secrets will be revealed beneath these receding glaciers . . . n/t

.