Under The Shade of Glacier

A paper nearly two weeks trapped in the drafts folder, untouched for publication. actual article is dedicated to the Earth Day April 22nd. Telling about the water. Water is a natural element that is vital for the life of all living things and life processes. The need for water must be met both in quantity and quality aspects. Fulfillment source of raw water for human life, among others, groundwater and surface water. But on the other hand, environmental degradation and the effects of the industrial revolution which sometimes ignore the environmental impacts affecting the global climate change on Earth.

As many as one-fifth of the Himalayan glaciers have been shrinking as it melts in the next 30 years. In detail, among others, 21 percent of the glaciers in Nepal and 22 percent in Butan melting glaciers.

The fact that the results of research International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), an organization based in Kathmandu, Nepal. A total of three reports concerning the research results were first presented at the UN Climate Talk in Durban, South Africa, Sunday (4/12/2011).

ICIMOD conducted a survey on 10 different locations and found that glaciers across locations studied melt. Disbursement accelerated in the last 10 years, especially 2002-2005.

Scientists have warned that the Himalayas are the "third pole" that if the thaw will contribute to sea level rise. Melting of glaciers will also hurt the people who live under it and potentially result in drought in Asia.

"Hindu Khus Himalayan region is the software giant. Looks awesome, the region is one of the most sensitive in the world, "said David Molden, director of ICIMOD, told AFP on Monday (5/12/2011).

Until now, there has been no specific data on the number, area, and their current status in the entire Himalayan region. Predicted, if the greenhouse gas emission reductions take place without, glaciers would disappear by 2035.

Responding to the report, Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said, "This report provides information on the basic and specific locations for understanding climate change in one of the most fragile regions of the world."

At the same time, the study also reaffirmed the importance of reducing greenhouse gas emissions through a variety of actions, from keeping the forest to reduce the use of fossil fuels.

A story of Tibet, China

"Definitely Average Gods Wrath" That's the only explanation that makes sense to Jia Son, Tibetan farmers who witnessed the catastrophe befall the village in Yunnan Province, China, which is mountainous. "We are damaging the natural order," said the 52-year man devout Buddhists it. "And now the gods punishing us." 

On a warm summer evening, Jia Son hike down the road more than two kilometers to the top of the canyon carved in the Mingyong Glacier Kawagebo sacred mountain (6,740 meters). There is no sign of ice in there, there's only snngai muddied by silt-laden melt. For over a century, since the glacier tongue sticking to the edge of the village Mingyong, glaciers were kept inching backward like a dying snake back to the nest. The process was accelerated in the last decade, to more than a piece of the ball field every year - too fast to measure masses of ancient ice.

"Ten years ago, this was all covered with ice," said Jia Son while climbing among the rocks and bushes, He showed yak track on a slope, about 60 meters above the valley floor. "This glacier used to sometimes cover the track, so we have to lead cattle across the ice to reach the meadow".

Near the winding river, the glacier's snout finally seen: it is black, full of crushed stone and dirt. The water from the ice that used to be so pure that it becomes a symbol of Buddha in rituals that are now so full of sediment that could not drink the villagers. The surface of the glacier which used to smooth rough now and berluhang-hole round of darts over one kilometer. Ice turquoise occasionally appear in the fracture, but the pass itself indicate a problem. "If our sacred glacier can not survive, what about our fate?"

Question Jia Son echoed worldwide, but is most urgent in the vast expanse of Asia to get its water from the "roof of the world" Giant geological tersebul - plateau is the highest and largest on Earth and surrounded by the highest mountains in the world - covering a larger area than Europe west, with an average altitude of more than three kilometers. With nearly 37,000 glaciers in parts of China alone, the Tibetan Plateau and the surrounding mountains contain the largest volume of ice outside the polar regions. The ice gave birth to the rivers of the largest and most legendary in Asia, from the Yellow River and the Yangtze to the Mekong and the Ganges - the river that throughout history has raised civilizations, inspiring religious, and preserving ecosystems. Now the rivers that sustain the lives of some populous residential areas in Asia, ranging from the arid plains of Pakistan to the cities - big cities are thirsty of water in northern China, nearly 5,000 kilometers away. Overall, sekilar two billion people in more than 10 countries - nearly a third of the world's population - rely on rivers where the water comes from melted snow and ice of the plateau region.

But the crisis is happening and there is a strange paradox there: although looks solid and lasting, geology stretch it more vulnerable to climate change than almost any other place on Earth During the past century. Tibet Plateau as a whole is warming twice faster than the global average of 0,740C - and even faster in some places. The heating rate is unprecedented for at least two millennia are unforgiving on Tibetan glaciers. A rare combination of elevation and low latitude makes it very sensitive to climate change.

For thousands of years, the glacier has become something called Lonnie Thompson, a glacier expert at Ohio State University, as "bank account freshwater Asia" - a giant warehouse that the formation of ice and new snow (savings) has historically offset its annual runoff (withdrawals). The melt glaciers most important role before and after the rainy season. At that moment the glacier supplies water to most of the streams, ranging from the Yangtze to the Ganges and Indus (very important for the agricultural center of India and Pakistan).

However, during the last half century, tersehut balance is lost and may not be refundable, Of the 680 glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau dtpantau ilniuwan closely by China, 95 percent of whom melt the ice much more than the establishment. The largest reduction occurred in the southern and eastern edges. "These glaciers are not only retreating, but also losing mass due to thinning," said Thompson. Icecap on the part of the Tibetan Plateau has shrunk more than 6 percent since the 1970s - while the damage is more severe in Tajikistan and northern India, decreased 35 percent and 20 percent in the past five decades.

Although scientists have yet to agree on the rate and causes of receding glaciers, most do not deny that the subsidence occurred. According to them, it may be getting worse. The more dark areas that are exposed as a result of the ice melting, the more sunlight is absorbed than the reflected so the temperature rises more rapidly. According to the expert climatology, warming feedback loop that can strengthen the Asian monsoon, causing more severe storms and floods in Bangladesh and Myanmar. Lerus If the trend continues, according to Chinese scientists, 40 percent of the plateau glaciers could disappear by 2050.

Potential impacts far beyond the glacier receding glaciers alone. On the Tibetan Plateau, especially in the dry northern side, the people are already suffering the effects of climate warming. Grasslands and wetlands diminished, and perennial ice that gives the water in the spring and summer of increasingly retreated to higher ground. Thousands of lakes are drying up. Currently about one-sixth of the plateau into the desert, and in some places the sand dunes spread across the plateau like yellow ocean wave. Shepherd who lived in a prosperous in the loss of livelihood.

By contrast, in the southern edge of the plateau, the problem facing many people is too much water. In the mountain village like Mingyong, melting ice made rivers overflow with beneficial impacts: agricultural land increasingly widespread and growing season length increases. However, these benefits often keep hidden dangers. In Mingyong, wave meltwater erodes the topsoil; in other lempat, excess runoff is accused of causing increasingly frequent flooding and landslides. In the mountains from Pakistan to Bhutan, thousands of glacial lakes are formed, many of which berpoltensi unstable. One dangerous is Imja Tsho, at an altitude of 5,000 meters on the path to the Island Peak in Nepal. Fifty years ago, the lake was not there. Now, filled with meltwater lake that stretches 1.6 kilometers in 90 meters. If the walls of the lake in the form of broken rocks rest of the glacier, the village - the Sherpa villages in the valleys below will sink.

This situation - too much water, too little water - illustrate the direction of the global crisis on a small scale. Although the melting glaciers make abundant water in the short term, it is a sign of the end sualu scary in the long run: the decline of Asia's largest rivers. No one can predict exactly when the glacier shrinkage will cause a drastic reduction of water runoff. Does it happen in 10, 30, or 50 years depending on local conditions, but the damage it has done throughout the region is very serious. In addition to water and electricity shortages are severe, experts predicted drop in food production, widespread migration due to ecological changes, even conflicts between major countries in Asia.

According to most experts, the situation may be getting worse. "Depreciation massive glaciers are inevitable." Said YaoTandong of the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research China.

A tent that looks like a white dot in the middle of the green and brown canvas. There was no other sign of human presence in the prairie altitude of 4,270 meters as extending up to the end of the world. When you hear the sound of a vehicle approaching the tent, appears two youths. Ba O and his brother Tsering is a direct descendant of Tibetan nomads who had been tending to summer pastures near the headwaters of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River for at least 1,000 years.

Inside the tent, Ba O's wife threw clumps of dried yak dung to fire while her four-year old playing with a roll of fleece. Female leader of the family. Lu Ji. stirring yak milk to make cheese. Behind him, on top of two crates of old Tibet, there is a small place worship Buddha: red prayer wheels, some smudged Tibetan texts, and several yak butter candles from the flame lidak never allowed to go out.

"This is our way of life for this," said Ba O. "And we lidak want it to change."

But it may be too late. Grasslands are dying as temperatures rise for decades - and exacerbated by excessive grazing of livestock that is left - which converts grasslands into desert. Water sources dry up and now instead of taking a short trip to find summer grazing for cattle, Ba O and his family had to travel about 50 kilometers across the plateau. Even at the destination was a little grass. The family livestock has been reduced from 500 to 120 cattle. The next step seems inevitable: selling the remaining cattle and the government moved to relocation camps.

Across Asia, in response to the threat from climate generally slow and not comprehensive, as the government prefers to hand it to the developed countries pumping greenhouse gases into the atmospheric. However there are some exceptions. In Ladakh, arid region in northern India and Pakistan that relies entirely on melting ice and snow, a retired civil engineer Chewang Norphel has built "glacier-made" - in the form of stone embankment simple restrain and freeze melt glaciers in the fall for use on the season planting in early spring. As for Nepal developing a remote monitoring system to gauge when glacial lake burst its banks threatened, as well as technology for draining. Even in places that flooded monsoon like Bangladesh, "floating schools" in the delta enable the children to continue in school - on a boat.

Only, no one surpasses response to China which has less water than Canada, but its population 40-fold. In the vast desert in the Xinjiang region, just north of the Tibetan Plateau, China plans to build 59 reservoirs to hold back and save the glaciers melt. All over Tibet, artillery shells fitted to launch silver iodide into clouds to stimulate rain unluk. In Qinghai. Government protects a degraded pasture with the hope to recover. In the area of ​​pasture has been turned into a desert berbelukar, barbed wire stretched over the last remnants of the plant that are not wind blown. 

The glaciers turned into desert

While in the village near the town of Madoi are relocating for pcngembara Tibet, part of a large and controversial program to relieve pressure on the meadow near the source of three of China's major rivers - the Yangtze, Yellow. and the Mekong - the usual home to nearly half of the 530,000 nomads in Qinghai Province.

It was not yet noon in Delhi which is situated only 290 kilometers south of the Himalayan glaciers, but in a narrow alley Nehru Camp, a slum in the city of 16 million people, the air blowing north Indian summer has made a soaring temperatures exceeding 40 degrees celelsius. Chaya, forecasters wives aged 25 years, had spent seven hours fighting over water which today characterizes the lives in the crowded metropolis - that's the picture due to the depletion of water and ice Tibet.

Chaya start bustle away, before the sun rises when he and five anaknva spread in the darkness, carrying a jerry can plaslik various sizes. Tired dawn, rumors are pouring tap water makes quick hurried down the aisle sempil. At that moment, with empty jerry cans and sun over his head, he went home for a short break. When asked if he had eaten that day, he laughed: "We have not even drink tea."

The water needs in Delhi has already exceeded supply by more than one billion liters a day. The shortage is exacerbated by the uneven distribution and leakage infrastruklur which reaches about 40 percent. More than two-thirds of the city's water was sucked out of the river Yamuna and Ganges that gets its water from Himalayan ice. If the ice had disappeared. almost certainly the future will be worse. "We are facing a situation not berkelanjulan," says Diwan Singh, Delhi environmental activist. "Soon in five to 10 years - there will be an exodus from lack of water."

The atmosphere was tense. In congested alley Nehru Camp around one of the last functioning taps, which mcngucur for one hour a day, a man hit a woman who menyerobol line, the woman's face was purple bruises. "Every morning we wake up berebul water," said Kamal Bhate, a local astrologer who viewed racket ilu. Keribulan subsides into shouts and each point, but the fights that occur can be fatal. In the slum not far from there, a teenage boy was recently beaten to death because menyelak line.

With the river recedes, ilu conflict could spread. India, China, and Pakistan face pressure to boost food production in order to meet kebuluhan population is large and growing. However, climate change and dwindling water supplies could reduce cereal yields in South Asia by 5 percent within three decades. "We will see increasing tension due to the division of water resources, including political disputes between farmers, rural and urban, and between human and environmental water needs," said Peter Gleick, water expert and president of the Pacific Institute in Oakland, California. "And I think there will be more tension that leads to violence."

The biggest challenge is to prevent water conflicts between countries. There is now emerging a sense of trepidation in Central Asia regarding the possibility of countries that are poor but rich in glaciers (Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan) someday restrict the flow of water to the neighboring dry but rich in oil (Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan). In the future, peace between Pakistan and India may depend on the water next to nuclear weapons since the two countries should share the Indus River that depend on glaciers.

The questions directed to China, which controls the source of major rivers in the region. Construction of dams on the Mekong River has made Indochina in downstream angry. If Beijing continues its tentative plans to divert the Brahmaputra, it could provoke its rival India to the dispute in the area where the two countries fought in 1962.

For residents in Nehru Camp, geopolitical concerns immersed in the bustle of the struggle for water. In the afternoon, tap outside the slum suddenly pouring and Chaya, with a triumphant smile, upholding return 40 liter jug ​​full. The water is dirty and bitter, nor is there a tool to boil. But finally, he can give the first food for their children that day: a piece of bread and some lentil soup spoon. "They should learn, but we are forced to send their search for water," Chaya said. "We have no choice, because who knows if we can get enough water tomorrow."

Incidentally, it may be a responsalami against forces that seem to exist outside of our control. But Jia Son, Tibetan farmers who witnessed the shrinking glacier Mingyong sure that every action is the means - both good and bad, large and small. When stopping at the mountain, she made a confession, melting it, katauya. possible mistakes, too.

When Jia Son first noticed an increase in temperature - an unusual sweat on his back about a decade ago - he thinks it is a gift of the gods: the winter was brutal as usual. The glacier started to melt the water early in the summer and for the first time in living memory Jia Son, villagers can harvest twice a year,

Then came the Chinese tourists, flooding of urban population is willing to pay locals to mernandu they see the glaciers. Han Chinese tourists do not always respect Buddhist traditions; herteriak carefree moment to trigger the avalanche, they seemed unaware of the disaster that befell the glacier, however, tourists have changed their impoverished villages that became one of the richest in the area. "Life is much easier now," said Jia Son whose home lampak humble like all the houses in the village, but equipped with parabolic lelevisi and government subsidies. "Maybe we made the wrath Kawagebo greed."

She means a temperamental deity in the base village. As one of the most sacred mountains of Tibetan Buddhism, Kawagebo had never conquered and locals believe its peak - and glaciers - must letap untouched. When the Sino-Japanese expedition tried to climb the peak was in 1991, an avalanche near the top of the glacier throughout killed 17 climbers. Jia Son remains confident that their death was not an accident but a reply gods. Could depreciation Mingyong is also a sign of wrath Kawagebo?

Jia Son does not want to take risks. Every year he made a pilgrimage 15 days around Kawagebo to show obedience to the Buddha, he is no longer hunt or cut down a tree. As part of a government program, he also handed over a plot of land to be reforested. His family is still involved in that village tourism cooperative, but Jia Son to make sure visitors know the spiritual importance of the glacier. "All is not going to improve unless we remove the materialistic way of thinking."