Mass loss on Himalayan glacier endangers water resources
Natalie Kehrwald,Lonnie G. Thompson,Yao Tandong,Ellen Mosley-Thompson,Ulrich Schotterer,Vasily Alfimov,Jiirg Beer,Jost Eikenberg,Mary E. Davis +8 more
Reads0
Chats0
TLDR
In this paper, the authors collected in 2006 from Naimona'nyi Glacier in the Himalaya (Tibet) lack these distinctive marker horizons suggesting no net accumulation of mass (ice) since at least 1950.Abstract:
[1] Ice cores drilled from glaciers around the world generally contain horizons with elevated levels of beta radioactivity including 36 Cl and 3 H associated with atmospheric thermonuclear bomb testing in the 1950s and 1960s. Ice cores collected in 2006 from Naimona'nyi Glacier in the Himalaya (Tibet) lack these distinctive marker horizons suggesting no net accumulation of mass (ice) since at least 1950. Naimona'nyi is the highest glacier (6050 masl) documented to be losing mass annually suggesting the possibility of similar mass loss on other high-elevation glaciers in low and mid-latitudes under a warmer Earth scenario. If climatic conditions dominating the mass balance of Naimona'nyi extend to other glaciers in the region, the implications for water resources could be serious as these glaciers feed the headwaters of the Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra Rivers that sustain one of the world's most populous regions.read more
Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
Climate change will affect the Asian water towers.
TL;DR: It is shown that meltwater is extremely important in the Indus basin and important for the Brahmaputra basin, but plays only a modest role for the Ganges, Yangtze, and Yellow rivers, indicating a huge difference in the extent to which climate change is predicted to affect water availability and food security.
Journal ArticleDOI
Implications of climate change for agricultural productivity in the early twenty-first century
Jemma Gornall,Richard Betts,Eleanor J. Burke,Robin T. Clark,Joanne Camp,Kate M. Willett,Andy Wiltshire +6 more
TL;DR: This paper reviews recent literature concerning a wide range of processes through which climate change could potentially impact global-scale agricultural productivity, and presents projections of changes in relevant meteorological, hydrological and plant physiological quantities from a climate model ensemble to illustrate key areas of uncertainty.
Journal ArticleDOI
Black soot and the survival of Tibetan glaciers
Baiqing Xu,Junji Cao,James Hansen,Tandong Yao,Daniel R. Joswia,Ninglian Wang,Guangjian Wu,Mo Wang,Huabiao Zhao,Wei Yang,Xianqin Liu,Jianqiao He +11 more
TL;DR: Evidence is found that reduced black soot emissions, in addition to reduced greenhouse gases, may be required to avoid demise of Himalayan glaciers and retain the benefits of glaciers for seasonal fresh water supplies.
Journal ArticleDOI
Climate change in mountains: a review of elevation-dependent warming and its possible causes
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore processes that could lead to enhanced warming within mountain regions and possible mechanisms that can produce altitudinal gradients in warming rates on different time scales, and explore the effect of elevation on the sensitivity of climate change to surface elevation.
Journal ArticleDOI
Monitoring lake level changes on the Tibetan Plateau using ICESat altimetry data (2003-2009)
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors used ICESat altimetry data to provide precise lake elevations of the Tibetan Plateau (TP) during the period of 2003-2009, which is the first time that precise lake elevation data are provided for the 111 lakes.
References
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
Potential impacts of a warming climate on water availability in snow-dominated regions
TL;DR: In a warmer world, less winter precipitation falls as snow and the melting of winter snow occurs earlier in spring, which leads to a shift in peak river runoff to winter and early spring, away from summer and autumn when demand is highest.
Journal ArticleDOI
Climatic warming in the Tibetan Plateau during recent decades
Xiaodong Liu,Baode Chen +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors collected monthly surface air temperature data from almost every meteorological station on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) since their establishment, and analyzed the temperature series to show that the main portion of the TP has experienced statistically significant warming since the mid-1950s, especially in winter, but the recent warming in the central and eastern TP did not reach the level of the 1940s warm period until the late 1990s.
Journal ArticleDOI
Tropical Climate Instability: The Last Glacial Cycle from a Qinghai-Tibetan Ice Core
Lonnie G. Thompson,Tandong Yao,Mary E. Davis,Keith Henderson,Ellen Mosley-Thompson,P.-N. Lin,J. Beer,H.-A. Synal,Jihong Cole-Dai,J. F. Bolzan +9 more
TL;DR: An ice core record from the Guliya ice cap on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau provides evidence of regional climatic conditions over the last glacial cycle as discussed by the authors.
Journal ArticleDOI
Late glacial stage and holocene tropical ice core records from huascaran, peru.
Lonnie G. Thompson,Ellen Mosley-Thompson,Mary E. Davis,P.-N. Lin,Keith Henderson,Jihong Cole-Dai,J. F. Bolzan,Kam-biu Liu +7 more
TL;DR: Two ice cores from the col of Huascar�n in the north-central Andes of Peru contain a paleoclimatic history extending well into the Wisconsinan (W�rm) Glacial Stage and include evidence of the Younger Dryas cool phase, implying that a strong warming has dominated the last two centuries.
Journal ArticleDOI
A High-Resolution Millennial Record of the South Asian Monsoon from Himalayan Ice Cores
Lonnie G. Thompson,Tandong Yao,Ellen Mosley-Thompson,Mary E. Davis,Mary E. Davis,Keith Henderson,Keith Henderson,P.-N. Lin +7 more
TL;DR: A high-resolution ice core record from Dasuopu, Tibet, reveals that this site is sensitive to fluctuations in the intensity of the South Asian Monsoon, and suggests a large-scale, plateau-wide 20th-century warming trend that appears to be amplified at higher elevations.