Headline News
- The Prediction: The Yala Glacier in Nepal is projected to vanish entirely by the 2040s.
- Status: It has been classified as “critically endangered” and was recently included in the Global Glacier Casualty List (a registry of glaciers that have disappeared or are on the verge of extinction).
Geographical Context
- Location: Langtang Valley, Central Nepal.
- Region: Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region (often called the “Third Pole” because it stores the most ice outside the polar regions).
- Elevation: Ranges from approx. 5,100m to 5,700m (rapidly losing elevation).
- Significance: It is one of the most intensively studied “benchmark” glaciers in the Himalayas, meaning its data is used to model the health of other glaciers in the region.
Key Data & Statistics (For Exams/Data Interpretation)
- Retreat Rate: The glacier retreated by 680 meters between 1974 and 2021.
- Area Loss: It has lost roughly 36% of its total area in the last 5 decades.
- Warming Rate: The Hindu Kush Himalaya cryosphere (frozen water zone) is warming twice as fast as the global average.
- Critical Threshold: Scientists state it is no longer suitable for standard monitoring because it has lost too much mass/volume (essentially becoming a “dead” glacier).
Primary Causes
- Anthropogenic Climate Change: Rising global temperatures are the primary driver.
- Albedo Effect: As ice melts, it exposes darker rock/debris, which absorbs more heat (instead of reflecting it like white ice), accelerating the melting process.
- Black Carbon: Soot and pollutants from the Indo-Gangetic plains settle on the ice, darkening it and increasing heat absorption.
Major Implications
- Water Security:
- Glaciers act as “water towers,” storing water in winter and releasing it in dry seasons.
- The HKH region provides water to nearly 2 billion people (approx. 240 million in the mountains and 1.65 billion downstream).
- Loss of the Yala glacier signals a future threat to river flows (Ganges, Indus, Brahmaputra).
- Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs):
- Rapid melting forms unstable lakes behind natural dams (moraines).
- If these dams break, they cause catastrophic floods downstream.
- Loss of Scientific Data: Since Yala was a benchmark glacier, its loss creates a gap in long-term climate data records for the region.
Related Current Affairs (Connect the Dots)
- International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation (2025): The UN has designated 2025 as the year to focus on cryosphere preservation.
- World Glacier Day: Starting in 2025, March 21 will be observed annually as World Glacier Day.
- ICIMOD: The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (based in Kathmandu) is the primary organization monitoring these changes.
Comparable Global Events
- Pico Humboldt Glacier (Venezuela): Recently reclassified as an ice field (essentially “died”) in 2024, making Venezuela the first modern nation to lose all its glaciers.
- Sarenne Glacier (France): Vanished/collapsed in 2023.