Himalayan Glaciers NOT Melting As Rapidly As Previously Believed
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News about glacier melting is largely dire. However, a new scientific report released on Thursday February 9th, finally has a glimmer of something positive. It states that while the glaciers on the Himalayan Mountains are melting, they are doing so, at a much slower pace than had been previously believed.
The bearer of good news was John Wahr, a researcher at the University of Colorado in Boulder. He and his team conducted their study of the giant range of mountains using measurements for the changes to ice mass for all glaciers greater than 100 square kilometers. The data recorded by NASA satellite, Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment or GRACE spanned from 2003-2010 and covered even the most remote ice packs.
What they discovered was that the amount of annual glacier loss on the Himalayan and Karakoram ranges was not as dire as had been calculated by prior researchers - In fact, it was substantially less - About 4 billion tons annually, as opposed to the current perception of 50 billion tons.
Why the large disparity? John Wahr believes it may be due to the fact that the past projections were based on a few hundred glaciers that can be observed from the ground. However, the data from GRACE is the compilation of more than 200,000 glaciers or Earth's entire ice cap.
The good news is that the Himalayan range will not be barren by 2035 as has been predicted by the pessimists. The bad news though is that glaciers from the Antarctica and Greenland are melting at a rapid pace and pose a big danger to sea levels in the near future. Given that the first 11 years of 2000 rank among the warmest 13 in the last 135 years, this is not surprising. Global warming is definitely an issue we have to contend with soon but, it is nice to some encouraging news.
Resources: csmonitor.com,dailymail.com
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169 Comments
blessedkarlabout 8 yearsSTOP CLIMATE CHANGE ALREADY PEOPLE!!!!!- bob almost 10 yearsworld = asome
diamondkidalmost 10 yearsI never knew that.- dogonews about 10 yearsWow
- help earthover 12 yearsLETS STOP CLIMATE CHANGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! this can ruin the earth and were just making bader for us . the us is one the biggest garth polluting country on plant earth. we want to stop this and save our earth and make the us a country thats it is ment to be!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Tcover 12 yearsi enjoyed the the paper but the title of the paper is Himalayan Glaciers NOT Melting As Rapidly As Previously Believed,and in your paper it was mostly talking about how it was melting not only melting but more than it should be so i just feel that the title did not fit the paper, but the paper was informative
cutegirlover 12 yearsO my gosh. Hope they won't melt that quickly. :(- Vanessa Lover 12 yearsI found this article very amusing. I am glad that the Himalayan glaciers are not melting as fast as the scientists thought it would. However, I am not happy about the fact that the glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland are melting at a rapid pace and pose a big danger to sea levels in the near future. I am also not happy that we have a problem with global warming. However, we can avoid it if we use bikes instead of using cars. I found this article very interesting and hope that the people in our world can try to avoid global warming. In addition, I hope the glaciers will not melt and the seas will not rise.
- Nikola P.over 12 yearsThis article was very interesting. I am happy that the Himalayan glaciers aren't melting that quikly but, I am worried that the glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland are melting at a quik pace.I think we should do something about global warming like ride bikes instead of cars, because if we don't, all the beautiful glaciers will be gone and the seas will rise. I would recommend this article to a friend that wants to know more about global warming.
- David P.over 12 yearsWow, this article was very interesting. I am glad that the Himalayan glaciers are not melting so quickly as the scientist said it would to. But I am not happy that the glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland are melting in a quick pace. We should do something about this global warming because it could end up being very bad. I hope that everything will be fine but it`s uncertain how it will turn out. I will recommend this article to friends who are interested in global warming.