Monitoring the catastrophic melting of the ice of Mount Everest

Scientists from the University of Maine, USA, have monitored the thinning of Mount Everest’s ice layer by two meters per year.
And the statement of the university’s media office indicates that it became clear to researchers that the ice of Everest annually loses an amount of ice that has accumulated over several decades, due to climatic changes resulting from human activity.

The researchers used data obtained from analyzing cylindrical ice samples taken from the summit of Everest, and data recorded by automatic weather stations installed at high altitudes.

And it turned out that the Himalayan ice is very sensitive to rising temperatures in the world, so it is thinning quickly, which indicates the possibility of avalanches and a decrease in the reserves of fresh water, on which millions of people depend.

According to scientists’ estimates, the rate of melting of the ice of Everest is about two meters per year. As the fixed ice sheet has disappeared, it reduces its ability to reflect sunlight, increasing the rate of melting and sublimation. It became clear to the researchers that during a quarter of a century the thickness of the ice sheet decreased by 55 meters, and this is 80 times faster than the speed of ice accumulation during 2000 years.

Modeling showed that the region’s exposure to intense sunlight would increase the speed of melting or evaporation by more than 20 times, if the snow cover gave way to the ice. In addition to the high air temperature, the decrease in the relative humidity level and the increase in wind speed have become sublimation factors.