NASA-International Space Station: NASA Says “Black Soot Can Make Tibet's Glaciers To Disappear”

NASA Says “Black Soot Can Make Tibet's Glaciers To Disappear”

Tibet's glaciers are melting at an alarming rate, NASA say. Black soot is probably responsible for as much as half of the glacial melt and greenhouse gases responsible for the rest, according to research announced by NASA and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Temperatures on the Tibetan Plateau sometimes called the "third pole" because it contains the major repository of ice outside the arctic and antarctic have warmed 0.5 degrees Fahrenheit per decade over the past 30 years.

That's about twice the rate of global temperature increases. The largest glacier on Yulong Snow Mountain on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau in southern China is one example. Known as Baishui No. 1, the glacier has retreated about 275 yards since 1982, according glacier expert He Yuanqing.

"At this rate, the glacier could disappear entirely over the next few decades," said the scientist, who heads a team of scientists who have been studying Yulong Mountain since 1999 for the Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, a government-run think tank.

Melting waters from the Tibetan Plateau's glaciers feed many of Asia's longest rivers, including the Yangtze, Mekong and Ganges, which provide water to more than 1 billion people."There are so many cracks in the ice that it could become hazardous soon for us to continue our work on the mountain," said scientist Du Jiankuo, who is part of the team working at Yulong.

Yao Tandong, one of China's leading glaciologists, warned last year in the journal Nature that two-thirds of the country's glaciers might be gone by 2050, and has said that "the full-scale glacier shrinkage in the plateau regions will ultimately lead to an ecological catastrophe."

Posted by CuttsMatt | at 9:32 PM