Past estimates of the rate of ice melt in the Himalayas are likely underestimated, according to a report from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Zhang Guoqing and his colleagues found that the actual loss of ice mass is about 6.5% more. As it turned out, the mistake was in an incorrect estimate of the volume of ice hidden under water – in the so-called ice lakes. Such reservoirs arise in hollows during the melting of the glacier. The most significant underestimation occurred in the central Himalayas, where the growth of glacial lakes was the fastest.
This omission was largely due to the fact that it is difficult to see underwater changes in satellite imagery. From 2000 to 2020, the number of proglacial lakes in the region increased by 47%, while their area increased by 33%, and their volume increased by 42%. This resulted in the loss of 2.7 gigatonnes of glacier mass, the equivalent of 570 million elephants and more than 1,000 times the total number of elephants in the world.
This loss has not been taken into account in previous studies because the satellite data used can only measure the surface area of the water in the lake, not the sea ice that is being replaced by the water.
Source: Rosbalt
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