2009 August, 31st

Phil Butler

Millions of people in Nepal now face extreme food and water shortages due to weather pattern disruption as a result of global warming. According to an international aid agency, Oxfam, Which conducts humanitarian efforts to alleviate poverty and injustice worldwide. Oxfam officials visited key communities lately and given the extreme hardship droughts and evident climactic change have had on the region, suggested increased agency and governmental aid to the area. According to their report, Nepal in particular will suffer even greater difficulties as reduced rainfall, and retreating glaciers make it more and more difficult to irrigate croplands.

One would hope the time for denying global warming as a threat has passed. Glaciers in the Himalayas, on which nearly all of Asia’s rivers depend, are receding at an alarming rate. Seasonal rains or monsoons, and water run off from these great freshwater storehouses essentially feed the people of the continent. Reports from every corner of the world now report record temperatures, minimized snowfalls, droughts and other signs that global warming is proceeding at an even more aggressive pace than was feared a couple of year ago. Ironically, many of the early reports on glacial melting in the Himalayas was conservative. The World Wildlife Federation released once such (PDF) report in 2005, which given today’s impacts of global warming on our water table, seems far too conservative. Back the, detractors railed at even these “cautionary” reports as ridiculous.

South India Water Crisis

The glaciers of Nepal and the Himalayas feed some 6,000 rivers and tributaries in Asia. Beside the obvious impact of droughts caused be the retreat of these great reservoirs, their are so many other ancillary effects which could prove disastrous for people or the region, not the least of which is the situation with glacial lakes in the high mountain areas beneath Mount Everest and others of the world’s greatest peaks. In short, glacial melting causes the levels of these high lakes to climb past the point where their containment may burst cascading flood waters to low-lying areas at lower elevations. The United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP’s) report warned of the possible bursting of these glacial lakes two years ago.

While The World Sleeps South Asia Acts

News from Bloomberg today announced a prelimenary meeting of South Asian nations to discuss the prevention of further Himalayan disaster. The “Kathmandu to Copenhagen” as it is being called, is scheduled as a preparation for the upcoming Copenhagen Conference where almost 200 nations will meet to replace the Kyoto Protocol. This preliminary meeting of the nations most impacted so far by Himalayan climate change include; Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. As an interesting footnote to this story, Ang Dawa, who is part of the parliamentary committee talking about climate change, said the effects on her village at the foot of Mount Everest are already being seen. She said;

“Our village was covered in several feet of snow during the winter when I was a child, but now there is hardly any snow.”

These high glacial lakes I mentioned earlier on have risen in some cases by as much as 45 percent. Satellite imagery reveals without a doubt, severe melting of these crucial glaciers, still further evidence that global climactic change is proceeding at an accelerated rate. Hundreds of millions of people in the region that depends on the water from these glaciers will be negatively effected in way we cannot envision or predict accurately. The Kyoto Protocol’s hard won actions, if conditions persist in their acceleration, will obviously prove ineffective. The people of these South Asian countries will of course be the first victims of any decisions which fail to alleviate at least the symptoms of global warming and its effects on our world. We will monitor these meetings, and perhaps even attend the ones slated for Copenhagen later this year.

Below are two satellite images take of selected glacial lakes in Nepal. Please note the spillways and valleys feeding these lakes, how barren of ice they are. Also, these images were taken almost 3 years ago. For the uninformed reader or those interested, please read about glacial lake outburst flooding GLOF.

Thulagi Glacial Lake - Note the upslope ice difference

Imja Glacial Lake two and a half years ago

Below the Hubbard glacial lake bursts, the 2nd largest such event in recorded history.

Before and after glacial dam break

Also please note the final example, but there are many others, in which a glacial lake burst sending hundreds of millions of cubic feet of water cascading down a river valley in Nepal in 1985. The 50 foot high torrent of water wiped out one hydopower installation, 14 bridges, thousands of acres or arable land, the infastructures of any number of villages and towns, and yet another dam in its path. Land in these high regions comes at a premium, and having top soil washed away effectively erradicates population centers dependent on crops grown there.

Dig Tsho, a lake in the Mt. Everest region of Nepal 1985

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About the Author

Phil Butler is editor-in-chief of Everything PR and senior partner at Pamil Visions PR. He’s a widely cited authority on beta startups, search engines and public relations issues, and he has covered tech news since 2004. Phil wrote in the past for ReadWriteWeb, Mashable, Profy, SitePoint, Search Engine Journal, AltSearchEngines. Follow Phil on Twitter or send him an email at phil [at] pamil-visions [dot] com.

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