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Alarm bells over Valley’s largest glacier
Source: The Indian Express, New Delhi, Date: , 2009
While Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh believes glacier melting has little to
do with climate change, expert Dr Shakeel Ramshoo has rung the alarm bells,
saying the Valley’s biggest glacier, Kolahai, may disappear altogether. The
convenor of the Climate Change Research working group at Kashmir University, Dr
Ramshoo says the area of Kolahai has retreated 13.87 sq km to 11.24 sq km since
1976. “The annual rate of retreat is 0.08 sq km, which is quite alarming,” he
says. The situation is no different with other glaciers. An Action Aid Report
says there has been an overall 21 per cent reduction in the glacier surface
area in the Chenab basin. “The mean area of glacial extent in the state has
also declined, from 1 sq km to 0.32 sq km from 1962 to 2004,” the report says.
However, it is Kolahai, one of the major glaciers of Himalayan region, that
worries climatologists more. Dr Ramshoo is leading the study on Kolahai in the
Valley and Suru basin glaciers in adjoining Kargil, a project sponsored by
ISRO, which began in 2007.
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