http://www.smh.com.au/world/cold-comfort-as-himalayan-ice-caps-defy-melt-fears-20120209-1rvwn.html
Cold comfort as Himalayan ice caps defy melt fears Damian Carrington, London February 10, 2012 a.. The Indian Himalayas. Photo: Julia Spence THE world's greatest snow-capped peaks, which run in a chain from the Himalayas to Tian Shan on the border of China and Kyrgyzstan, have lost no ice over the past decade, new research shows. The discovery has stunned scientists, who had believed about 50 billion tonnes of meltwater were being shed each year and not being replaced by new snowfall. The study is the first to survey all the world's ice caps and glaciers and was made possible by the use of satellite data. Overall, the contribution of melting ice outside the two largest caps, in Greenland and Antarctica, is much less than previously estimated, with the lack of ice-loss in the Himalayas and the other high peaks of Asia responsible for most of the discrepancy. The melting of Himalayan glaciers caused controversy in 2009 when a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change mistakenly stated the glaciers would disappear by 2035, instead of 2350. However, the scientist who led the new work maintains that the melting of ice caps and glaciers around the world remains a serious concern. ''Our results and those of everyone else show we are losing a huge amount of water into the oceans every year,'' said Professor John Wahr, of the University of Colorado. His team's study is published in the journal Nature. The scientists point out that lower-altitude glaciers in the Asian mountain ranges are definitely melting. Satellite images and reports confirm this. But over the study period, from 2003 to 2010, enough ice was added to the peaks to compensate. GUARDIAN Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/cold-comfort-as-himalayan-ice-caps-defy-melt-fears-20120209-1rvwn.html#ixzz1m0jz6Fh1 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
