Past estimates of the rate of ice melt in the Himalayas have probably been underestimated. In this respect informs Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Zhang Guoqing and colleagues found that the actual loss of ice mass was about 6.5% greater. Basically, the error was due to an incorrect estimate of the volume of ice hidden in so-called ice lakes – underwater. Such reservoirs arise in hollows during the melting of the glacier. The most important underestimation occurred in the central Himalayas, where the growth of glacial lakes was fastest.
This omission is largely due to the difficulty of seeing underwater changes in satellite images. From 2000 to 2020, the number of proglacial lakes in the region increased by 47%, their area increased by 33%, the volume – by 42%. This resulted in the loss of 2.7 gigatons of glacial mass, equivalent to 570 million elephants and more than 1,000 times the total number of elephants in the world. Earlier studies did not account for this loss because the satellite data used can only measure the surface area of the water in the lake, not the sea ice replacing the water.
The study also highlights the need to understand the mechanisms behind glacial mass loss from ice lakes. On a global scale, it is estimated that there could be 211.5 gigatons of ice between 2000 and 2020, or about 12% of the total amount on Earth.
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