At The Foot Of Everest, Pokhalde Glacier Now A Lake: Many Small Glaciers In Region Gone

[hatrack]

Fifty years ago, the Pokhalde glacier snaked across the slopes of the Himalayas, a bloated tongue of ice hundreds of meters wide. Today, it’s gone.

An Elkins scientist, Alton Byers, just spent 30 days climbing all over the Mount Everest region with a sleeping bag, a Sherpa research assistant and a stack of 50-year-old black-and-white photos. Two European explorers photographed Everest’s glaciers in 1955, and Byers wanted to see if the glaciers were still there.

Some were. Many had melted. “One glacier that was a glacier in 1950 is now a lake, because of global warming,” said Byers, who has lived and researched in the Himalayas on and off for 30 years.

In fact, small glaciers — “small” meaning less than half a kilometer in size — have often completely evaporated from the lower slopes, unless they had an insulating natural covering of boulders and soil.

EDIT

http://sundaygazettemail.com/section/News/2008010515

[kestrel91316]

1. I fear I may live to see the day when Everest is no longer a snow/ice

climb, but just a very high-altitude rock scramble........