Читать книгу How Can I Stop Climate Change: What is it and how to help - Литагент HarperCollins USD, F. M. L. Thompson - Страница 17

It’s common to talk about glaciers ‘retreating’. They are of course melting, and have been doing so for a long time. But the rapid speed of melting today is causing problems.

In 1985 Norbu Sherpa’s family home, his fields and animals in the Nepalese Himalaya were swept away by an outburst from the Dig Tsho glacial lake. He had been training to be a monk but after the family lost everything, he gave up his religious calling to work as a trekking guide. Today he and his family are still rebuilding their lives. ‘Those were the most distressing hours of my life,’ Norbu glacial lakes. In the Everest region glaciers Sherpa says.

There are more than 3,000 glaciers in the Nepalese Himalaya, most feeding into retreated by up to 60 m between 1970 and 1989. As the glaciers retreat, water levels in the lakes rise. A study for the United Nations Environment Programme warned that more than 20 lakes in the Himalayas are potentially dangerous because of climate change – at risk of bursting their banks.

The retreat of Himalayan glaciers also poses a threat to the millions of people in India and across Asia who rely on snow and glacial melt for their water; scientists think that in 20-30 years these supplies will be greatly reduced.