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The Himalayas has lost no significant ice over the past decade, according to a new study, that found melting ice from glaciers is having a much smaller effect on sea levels than previously thought.

Previous studies relied on physical measurements of ice caps and glaciers on the ground.

However less than 120 out of more than 160,000 across the world have actually been measured because of the difficulty of accessing freezing and remote regions.

The new study, published in Nature, used satellites to measure the loss of ice from ice caps and glaciers for the first time from 2003 to 2010.

The results found that overall ice loss from ice caps and glaciers on land, excluding the huge ice caps on Greenland and Antarctica, is adding 0.4 mm per year to sea levels compared to previous projections that estimated 1mm per year.

Mountain glaciers in Asia in particular are having a much smaller effect than thought, with a “neglible mass loss” from the Himalayas over the last ten years.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/9071908/Melting-glaciers-on
-the-Himalayas-not-contributing-to-sea-level-rise.html

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Originally posted by AURaptor:
" ... losses for the High Mountain Asia region - comprising the Himalayas, Karakoram, Tianshan, Pamirs and Tibet - were insignificant."


Glaciers melt and glaciers freeze. It's kinda a cycle thing. They don't stay exactly the same, over eons.

Try to keep that in mind.


" I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. "

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Originally posted by RionaEire:
We'll have to see what happens. That is good though, maybe glaciers in other places will stop melting and the cycle will turn around and start heading in the other direction.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:

Is that like, instead of a ten-inch knife stabbing you, it's a four-inch knife instead.

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Originally posted by Hero:

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:

Is that like, instead of a ten-inch knife stabbing you, it's a four-inch knife instead.

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In you example the knife is not the problem...

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The fact that the satelllite is measuring ice much higher up the mountain range rather than concentrating on more accessible glaciers in warmer areas lower down could account for the change in estimates.

It comes after the “Himalayagate” scandal that saw the United Nations science body the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forced to admit it was a mistake to predict the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035.

Jonathan Bamber, of the Bristol Glaciology Centre at the University of Bristol, said melting glaciers are an iconic symbol of climate change.

He said the new study will help to understand the effect of climate change on the billions of people living in areas relying on melt ice and help to understand the long term effect on sea level rise.

“The contribution of glaciers and ice caps (excluding the Antarctica and Greenland peripheral GICs) to sea-level rise was less than half the value of the most recent, comprehensive estimate obtained from extrapolation of in situ measurements for 2001-05 (0.41 +/- 0.08 compared with 1.1mm yr). Second, losses for the High Mountain Asia region - comprising the Himalayas, Karakoram, Tianshan, Pamirs and Tibet - were insignificant.”

The expansion of water as the oceans warm and the melting of the major ice caps at the Poles are the main driver of sea level rise, which is predicted to rise by between 30cm and 1m by 2100.

Prof John Wahr, of the University of Colorado, pointed out that the new way of measuring glaciers using satellites known as Grace (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) is at an early stage and more work needs to be done.

The study shows 148 billion tonnes of ice, or about 39 cubic miles, was lost annually between 2003 and 2010.

This equates to some 1,000 cubic miles of ice disappearing between 2003 and 2010 – enough to cover the US in one-and-a-half feet of water.

"Our results and those of everyone else show we are losing a huge amount of water into the oceans every year," he said. "People should be just as worried about the melting of the world's ice as they were before."

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