A mass of white wall, a bastion that separates India from China, an adventure that beckoned many to achieve an impossible dream. Sagarmatha, Qomolungma, or simply Mount Everest - the only landform on Earth that pierces the Stratosphere and stands proudly above the clouds. The atmosphere in this region is so thin that the climbers find it difficult to breathe and most need to resort to supplementary oxygen. Glaciers here stretch for miles and are sources of water to a large number of rivers in Asia.
All that, however, is changing very fast. Huge mass of ice locked away in the glaciers of Himalaya and the Karakoram is now melting rapidly as the climate is becoming warmer. These glaciers have been melting steadily for decades. A study conducted in 2019 revealed that 78 of 79 analyzed Himalayan glaciers melted substantially in past 60 years. In the worst cases, the ice became 328 feet (100 meters) thinner between1962 and 2018. The thinning of Barun Glacier was particularly alarming: It lost 492 feet (150 meters) of thickness in the last six decades.
The Effects
In 2016, the Nepalese army had to be called in to drain the lakes flooded with glacial melt. The melts of Khumbhu Glacier is forming ponds that are linking up to create small lakes. Between 2000 - 2016 the average temperature of the region, becoming 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the average temperature between 1975 - 2000. According to Owen King, a research fellow at the University of St Andrews in the U.K., as the glaciers move, they leave behind rocky debris and exposed cliffs which absorb more radiation from the sun, causing the surrounding ice to melt. The melted water then seeps into the troughs created by the retreating glaciers, creating small ponds which further melt the surrounding ice, and more water fills the ponds. Ultimately, clusters of ponds join up and form huge glacial lakes. As a result, more than 400 new lakes formed between 1990 and 2015.
This mountain range is the source of fresh water for more than 2 billion people. The acceleration of the melting puts that once-steady source of water in jeopardy, threatening the lives and livelihoods of nearly a fifth of the world's population.
The Deads of the Mountain
While nearly 5,000 people have successfully made it to the summit, another 300 are thought to have died along the way. Some of these bodies remained buried for decades. According to Ang Tshering Sherpa, former president of Nepal Mountaineering Association, due to the melting of the glaciers some of these bodies are becoming exposed. A BBC report says that most of these bodies were found near Camp 4 in Khumbhu Glacier because this area is relatively flat.
Rising Atmospheric Pressure
Tom Matthews, a climate scientist at Loughborough University in the U.K, says that when temperature rises, molecules move faster and start to collide with each other, resulting in the increase of pressure. More pressure means more molecules, making more oxygen available to breathe. This may sound like a good news for the climbers, but in reality this is indicative of the
green-house effect.
References
https://www.popsci.com/story/science/mount-everest-melting-glaciers/
https://www.livescience.com/65072-mount-everest-melting-dead-bodies.html
Tom Matthews, L. Baker Perry, Timothy P. Lane, Aurora C. Elmore, Arbindra Khadka, Deepak Aryal, Dibas Shrestha, Subash Tuladhar, Saraju K. Baidya, Ananta Gajurel, Mariusz Potocki, Paul A. Mayewski, Into Thick(er) Air? Oxygen Availability at Humans' Physiological Frontier on Mount Everest, iScience,Volume 23, Issue 12,2020,
It is high time we become even careful to save this planet.
Global warming is evident everywhere... And here is another evidence... So nicely put... It's disheartening to see how our beautiful earth is gradually becoming wasted and barren...