Glaciers of ‘third pole’ set to shrink by a third
Vast mountain glaciers that help to provide water, irrigation and power for up to two billion people are expected to shrink by at least a third as temperatures heat up this century, scientists have warned.
The ice caps of the Hindu Kush Himalayan region feed some of the world’s mightiest rivers and have been called the ‘‘water tower of Asia’’.
But global warming is on course to thaw swathes of their cover, even if the world hits ambitious targets to limit temperature rises, a report has said.
Forecasts of the impact of climate change have previously focused on islands and coastal zones, overlooking an area known as a ‘‘third pole’’ because of the amount of ice it holds.
‘‘This is the climate crisis you haven’t heard of,’’ said Philippus Wester, who led the report. He predicted that the glacier region that straddles Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Burma, Nepal and Pakistan would shrink by twothirds if no progress is made reining in emissions.
‘‘Global warming is on track to transform the frigid, glaciercovered mountain peaks . . . to bare rocks in a little less than a century,’’ said Wester.
The report, by 210 authors, said 36 per cent of the ice in the region would melt by 2100, even if governments hit the most ambitious targets in the 2015 Paris climate agreement, which would limit a temperature rise to 1.5C. If no action was taken to reduce green house gas emissions, two thirds of the ice would melt.
Glaciers have thinned and retreated across most parts of the Hindu Kush Himalayan region since the Seventies.
Eklabya Sharma, the deputy director general of ICIMOD, told Reuters that if all the ice melted, it would push up sea levels by 1.5m.
The thaw would disrupt rivers including the Yangtze, Mekong, Indus, Yellow and Ganges, which directly or indirectly supply billions with food, energy and livelihoods.