KATHMANDU: More than a billion people in Asia depend on Himalayan glaciers for water, but experts say they are melting at an alarming rate, threatening to bring drought to large swathes of the continent.
Glaciers in the Himalayas provide headwaters for Asia’s nine largest rivers, lifelines for the 1.3 billion people who live downstream.
But temperatures in the region have increased by between 0.15 and 0.6 degrees Celsius each decade for the last 30 years, dramatically accelerating the rate at which glaciers are shrinking. “Scientists predict that most glaciers will be gone in 40 years as a result of climate change,” said Prashant Singh, leader of environmental group WWF’s Climate for Life campaign.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations body regarded as the world’s top authority on climate change, has warned Himalayan glaciers could “disappear altogether by 2035” and experts say the effects of global warming are already being felt in the region.
Experts say the resulting water shortages could hit the economic development of China and India.
Helpless: But research on the impact of global warming on the rugged and inaccessible Himalayas remains sparse, with the IPCC describing the region as a “blank spot” due to a lack of scientific data.
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