(IN): Warming of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau bad news for India

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Warming of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau bad news for India

PTI 18 August 2009, 06:53pm IST

BEIJING: With the glaciers on the Qinghai- Tibet Plateau receding at an alarming

rate, North India could face the prospect of drought and water levels in major

rivers like the Indus originating from Tibet could be hit in the long-run, a

leading Chinese meteorologist has warned.

 

" The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is among the regions worst hit by global

warming, " said Qin Dahe of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

" Due to global warming, glaciers on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau are retreating

extensively at a speed faster than in any other part of the world, " Qin said.

 

The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is the world's third-largest store of ice. So far,

82 per cent of glacier surfaces on the plateau have retreated and the

glacier area itself has decreased by 4.5 per cent during the past 20 years.

 

" In the short term, this will cause lakes to expand and bring floods and

mudflows, " leading to a deleterious effect on the global climate and also on

the livelihood of Asian people, Qin was quoted as saying by state-run 'China

Daily.'

 

If the vegetation on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau decreases, " consequent

absorption of solar radiation will change the intensity of summer monsoons

in Asia. This will bring drought to north India and intensify floods in

southern China and droughts in the north " , he said.

 

" In the long run, glaciers are vital lifelines for Asian rivers, including

the Indus and the Ganges. Once they vanish, water supplies in those regions

will be in peril, " Qin said.

 

Qin, the former head of the China Meteorological Administration (CMA), said

the temperature in Tibet rose by an average of 0.32 degrees Celsius every 10

years between 1961 and 2008, much faster than the average across China,

where temperatures rose by between 0.05 and 0.08 degrees.

 

Tibet's average temperature in July was the highest since 1951. During the

same month, there was between 30 and 80 per cent less rain in western and

southern Tibet than in the same month in previous years, according to CMA

data.

 

Yao Tandong, one of China's leading glacier experts and director of the

Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Research Institute of CAS, echoed Qin's view, adding

that glaciers were accurate archives of climate changes. " Glaciers on the

plateau show warming has been abrupt and exceptional. It is warmer now than

at any time during the past 2,000 years, " he said.

 

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a UN body studying

global warming, predicted in May that Himalayan glaciers, including the

Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, could vanish within three decades at the present rate

of warming.

 

At the same time, Qin said there were also benefits associated with warming

on the plateau.

 

" Warming is good for agriculture and tourism. It has increased the growing

season of crops, " Qin said.

 

As the world's highest and most complex mountain range, the Himalayas

stretch across six countries, including China, India and

Nepal.

Several major rivers in Asia, including the Yangtze, begin there, and their

combined drainage basin is home to more than 2.7 billion people, Qin said.

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