A controversy that won’t melt

Glaciers are known to be nature’s barometers. They help decipher changes in the climate which the earth has undergone in the past. But the moot question before the scientific community and the layman is, do they provide indicators of what will happen in the future and more pertinently are the Himalayan glaciers melting at such a furious pace that they are likely to vanish in the near future.
A new report by Vijay Kumar Raina, a senior Indian glaciologist, and formerly of the Geological Survey of India, seeks to correct the widespread belief that India's 10,000 or so Himalayan glaciers are shrinking rapidly in response to climate change.
Raina’s report has emphasised that given the limited data available, glaciers are not exhibiting an abnormal annual retreat. Raina's report draws on published studies and unpublished findings from scientists using remote-sensing satellite data or conducting on-site surveys in these remote and desolate regions to arrive at this conclusion.
Looking at specific glaciers, the report shows that the Gangotri glacier, which is the source of the river Ganga, retreated dramtically at an average of 70 feet a year between 1934 and 2003. But the retreat has slowed down, and between September 2007 and June 2009 was practically at a stand-still.
The Siachen glacier in Jammu and Kashmir, is even more stable. Climate-warriors had been warning that Siachen had shrunk as much as 50 per cent, but Raina insists that the glacier has “not shown any remarkable retreat in the last 50 years.” These conclusions were based in part on field measurements by ecologist Kireet Kumar of the G. B. Pant Institute of Himalayan Environment and Development in Almora.
Scientists around the world agree that glaciers are indeed shrinking. They also fear that this will adversely impact water supply as glacier melt contributes to the key rivers that flow through the Indo-Gangetic plain.
Al Gore, in his Oscar winning film An Inconvenient Truth, had shown how the melting of the Himalayan snows would impact the world's major river systems which help sustain 40 per cent of the world’s population. The melting Himalayas were seen as a key icon in the global warming message being sent out by climate change campaigners.
The study of glaciology needs to be taken much more seriously. Keeping this in mind, the Indian government has set up an Institute of Himalayan Glaciology. More important, it is now looking at working closely with China, Nepal and Bhutan in order to understand this phenomenon better.
For the average Ladakhi, though, water supply from glacial melt is on the decline. Ninety-two year old Phuntchok Namgyal from Stakmo told this reporter that he did not need a scientist to tell him about global warming. Poor snow-melt was causing a serious water crisis in Ladakh. India's first ‘glacial man’, Chaweng Norphel, who has pioneered the building of ‘artificial glaciers’ admits he was inspired to do so because glaciers in his state are retreating rapidly.
This is one controversy that will not go away all that easily.