Washington, Feb 4: South Col Glacier on the Mount Everest has melted 80 times faster than it formed because of climate change, a study said on Friday. As per the study published in journal Climate and Atmospheric Science, the ice that took around 2,000 years to form has melted in around 25 years serving as a warning that rapid glacier melt at some of the Earth’s highest points could bring worsening climate impacts, including more frequent avalanches and a drying-up of water sources. A team of scientists and climbers, visited the glacier in 2019 and collected samples from a 10-meter-long (around 32 feet) ice core.
“It’s a complete change from what has been experienced in that area, throughout probably all of the period of occupation by humans in the mountains and it’s happened very fast”, Director of the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine Paul Mayewski said as quoted by CNN. The research showed that once the glacier’s ice became exposed, it lost around 55 meters (180 feet) of ice in a quarter-century. He claimed that the ice loss has been most intense since the late 1990s. This transformation to ice means the glacier can no longer reflect radiation from the sun, making its melt more rapid.
Model simulations show that because of the extreme exposure to solar radiation, melting or vaporisation in this region can speed up by a factor of more than 20, once snow cover transforms to ice. “Polar bears have been the iconic symbol for warming of the Arctic and the loss of sea ice. We’re hoping that what’s happened high up on Everest will be another iconic call and demonstration”, he added.
