Eyewitness Account: Himalayan Glaciers Evaporating Completely

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Fifty years ago, the Pokhalde glacier snaked across the slopes of the Himalayas, a bloated tongue of ice hundreds of meters wide.

Today, it’s gone.

An Elkins scientist, Alton Byers, just spent 30 days climbing all over the Mount Everest region with a sleeping bag, a Sherpa research assistant and a stack of 50-year-old black-and-white photos. Two European explorers photographed Everest’s glaciers in 1955, and Byers wanted to see if the glaciers were still there.

Some were. Many had melted.

One glacier that was a glacier in 1950 is now a lake, because of global warming,” said Byers, who has lived and researched in the Himalayas on and off for 30 years.

Many of the Himalaya's "small glaciers" -- less than half a kilometer in size -- are facing a similar fate: rapid melting, complete evaporation, and justified fears:

Some predictions forecast that the glaciers will melt and cause Himalayan lakes to burst their seams, killing people downstream. Or, so much ice could melt and evaporate that mighty glacier-fed rivers like the Ganges could dry up, inflicting drought all over south Asia.


Read the full story in the Charleston Gazette
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