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Scientists are increasingly watching how climate change is
impacting the environmentally fragile Himalayas, home to the
planet's tallest peaks and the source of water for rivers that
hundreds of millions of people depend on.
Since the end of September, a Chinese team has set up five
automatic weather stations on Cho Oyu, at altitudes from 4,950
meters to its summit at 8,201 meters, the official Xinhua news
agency reported on Friday.
Snow and ice samples at the summit had been collected for the
first time, Xinhua reported.
Initial research showed that the ice layer on Cho Oyu was the
thickest among peaks above 8,000 meters, with a thickness of
more than 70 meters being seen, Xinhua reported.
The weather stations on Cho Oyu, which means "Turquoise Goddess"
in Tibetan, expand a Chinese meteorological network in the
Himalayas that includes monitoring of the 8,848-metre Everest,
also on the border with Nepal, and the 8,013-metre Shishapangma
in Tibet.
Monitoring the effects of global warming has taken on urgency
after one of the warmest summers in the northern hemisphere this
year. Mont Blanc, Western Europe's highest peak, has lost more
than two metres in height over two years because of its
shrinking snowpack, researchers said on Thursday.
Torrential rain in India's northeastern Sikkim state burst the
banks of a glacial lake and triggered flash floods this week,
killing at least 40 people in the latest example of extreme
weather events in the mountain range that scientists have blamed
on climate change.
High-altitude surveillance was imperative to avoid disasters
such as floods and ice avalanches as glaciers melt, Xinhua
reported, citing Yang Wei, a researcher at the Institute of
Tibetan Plateau Research of Chinese Academy of Sciences.
(Reporting by Ryan Woo; editing by Robert Birsel)
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