The new hiatus
May 10, 2014
Bishop Hill in Climate: WG2

A new paper by Bahuguna et al published in the Indian journal Current Science finds that there has been little or no change to the extent of Himalayan glaciers in recent years:

...a study has been carried out to find the change in the extent of Himalayan glaciers during the last decade using IRS LISS III images of 2000/01/02 and 2010/11. Two thousand and eighteen glaciers representing climatically diverse terrains in the Himalaya were mapped and monitored. It includes glaciers of Karakoram, Himachal, Zanskar, Uttarakhand, Nepal and Sikkim regions. Among these, 1752 glaciers (86.8%) were observed having stable fronts (no change in the snout position and area of ablation zone), 248 (12.3%) exhibited retreat and 18 (0.9%) of them exhibited advancement of snout. The net loss in 10,250.68 sq. km area of the 2018 glaciers put together was found to be 20.94 sq. km or 0.2% (±2.5% of 20.94 sq. km).

The results are suitably caveated with respect to the length of period studied and the resolution of the images, but it certainly doesn't look like a precipitous retreat is taking place.

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