This is how the smoke settles at high altitudes and disturbs the natural process of glaciers
According to a new study, air pollution in the upper reaches of the Hindu Kush Himalayas (HKH) threatens the lives of 750 million people by accelerating global warming.
According to a report by the World Bank, these people living along the Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers nourished by the melting of glaciers face the direct risk of flooding, and eventually face a water crisis when the glaciers melt completely.
HKH is located in the Ganges region of India in the south and the Tibetan Plateau in the north and northeast-two of the most polluted regions in the world, glaciers in the Himalayas: climate change, black carbon and regional resilience.
Aerosols, especially black carbon, rise from these surrounding areas in the form of smoke and settle at higher altitudes. This layer of pollutants can distort the albedo (solar reflectance) of the glacier, which is essential for the survival of the glacier. Therefore, these structures will eventually absorb more sunlight and the highlands will become hotter.
The World Bank observed:
Artificial black carbon deposits such as soot further accelerate the melting of glaciers and snow in these mountains. BC is produced by human activities inside and outside South Asia. It is part of a larger aerosol basket that directly and indirectly affects climate change.
Smog (smoke and fog) has become an accidental phenomenon throughout the Ganges Plain in India. But in this analysis, Down To Earth visualizes the aerosol data from the European Space Agency satellite Sentinel 5P to observe the path of smoke reaching higher altitudes in the HKH area.
According to the European Space Agency, the visualized data set shows a 24-hour average of the "absorption aerosol index", which can be used to determine the presence of ultraviolet-absorbing aerosols, such as dust and smoke.
A positive AAI value indicates the presence of aerosols that absorb ultraviolet light, as shown by the scale bar in the video.
DTE reported earlier that India and China are the biggest contributors to black carbon (the main aerosol pollutant). According to the World Bank's research, the concentration of particles will rise, and its impact will be far-reaching.
According to the report, in the face of climate change, accelerated melting of glaciers is expected to aggravate various natural disasters caused by water, such as glacial lake outburst floods and general floods, which will affect people and assets at risk.
The HKH area is often referred to as the "Third Pole", with nearly 55,000 glaciers, and is the area with the most fresh water storage after the Arctic and Antarctic.
But according to glaciologist Qin Xiang, at least 509 glaciers have disappeared in the past 50 years, and the rate of glacier melting has doubled since 2005.
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