{"id":103,"date":"2016-04-09T18:03:12","date_gmt":"2016-04-09T18:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=103"},"modified":"2016-04-09T18:03:12","modified_gmt":"2016-04-09T18:03:12","slug":"donald-trump-paris-climate-change-global-warming-united-nations-glaciers-melting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=103","title":{"rendered":"What If Glaciers Melted?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I<\/span>magine this: The Indian subcontinent is now the bed of the sea, coral grows on Rajpath and schools of fish are hanging in Blue Frog. The only dry land left is the peak of Mount Everest. That is until a 1,500-meter-tall wave forms, hovers for a split second, and crashes down on it, submerging the last dry land on Earth.\n\nThis tsunami is nothing to worry about; it\u2019s the creative trademark of apocalypse movie <\/p>2012<\/em>. It\u00a0was\u00a0attributed to findings by Indian astrophysicist\u00a0Jimi Mistry<\/a>, who claimed\u00a0that rogue neutrinos in the sun produced solar flares\u00a0so intense that the temperature of Earth\u2019s core increased rapidly. Or in simpler words, not likely.\n\nSo since the Himalayan glaciers weren\u2019t melting anytime soon, the movie was\u00a0panned for being ridiculous,\u00a0and we all shared a good laugh on\u00a0December 22<\/span>.\n\nBut that changed, when\u00a0experts<\/a>\u00a0in Nainital sent out a warning that Uttarakhand forest fires are likely to have a very serious impact on our glaciers. A likely consequence to the fire, they warned, is that black carbon and ash will settle on the ice sheets, trapping the heat in, and accelerating the rate at which they\u2019d melt.\n

<\/a>

Forest fires have resulted in a jump of 0.2 degree Celsius in temperatures across north India.<\/p>

\nHindustan Times\/ Getty Images<\/p><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In order to assume the glaciers are melting faster than normal, we need to find out what normal is. According to a controversial\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007, we\u2019d have no glaciers on the Himalaya by 2035. But that study was retracted for \u201clacking IPCC standards of evidence\u201d by the then chief R K Pachauri.<\/p>\nAnother\u00a0study<\/a>, meanwhile,\u00a0<\/a>took a shot at\u00a0proving climate change was a\u00a0hoax,\u00a0by\u00a0claiming\u00a0that the\u00a0glacier\u00a0melt had been insignificant in the\u00a0last century. Specifically, it said that 87\u00a0per cent\u00a0of the\u00a0glaciers\u00a0were stable \u2013 neither getting larger, nor receding. But still others, like\u00a0this one<\/a>\u00a0published in 2011 by the Institute of Tibetan in China, say the glaciers are indeed melting at an accelerated rate, and that they had \u201cdecadal information\u201d to prove this.\n\nSo no one knows for sure how fast it\u2019s happening, but we\u2019re pretty sure it is happening. So what should we expect?\n\nOne consequence is\u00a0\u201cglacial-lake outbursts\u201d<\/a>, a phenomenon with a nasty reputation. Nepal witnessed a particularly bad case of glacial outburst in July 1981, when the Phulping Bridge was swept away by floodwater triggered by the bursting of a lake. The force of that raging torrent was strong enough to dislodge boulders 30 metres across.\n\nIn the last century, at least 50 glacial-lake outbursts have been recorded in the Himalaya, each mimicking the effects of the Kedarnath disaster<\/a> three years ago that claimed an estimated 5,700 lives.\n

Poor Bangladesh\u00a0probably won\u2019t be able to handle all the water, since much of its land\u00a0is\u00a0barely above sea level.\u00a0Neither will the Maldives.<\/blockquote>\nMeanwhile, the snow on the lower slopes of the Himalaya will continue to melt slowly, sending streams of water into our major rivers, inundating field upon field, ruining crops, and in some areas choking water supplies.\n\nPoor Bangladesh\u00a0probably won\u2019t be able to handle all the water, since much of its land\u00a0is\u00a0barely above sea level.\u00a0Neither will the Maldives archipelago,\u00a0where most islands\u00a0are\u00a0two metres above sea level. The people of Maldives\u00a0pre-empted<\/a>\u00a0this situation in 2008 and asked both India and Sri Lanka if they could buy land off them.\n\nThen we\u2019ll have the more paranoid people running to the mountains, yelling warnings like: \u201cThe rivers will run red with blood!\u201d\n\nBut really, the water will trickle down the mountains, flooding our major rivers and inundating\u00a0our most densely\u00a0populated regions \u2013 the Gangetic plains of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.\n\nPretty soon, we\u2019ll face a serious shortage of water, mass migration, and an Immortan Jignesh of our own. Then states will start fighting over river water, as\u00a0China attempts to\u00a0divert\u00a0<\/a>a good chunk of\u00a0the clean water\u00a0left for itself.\n\nEventually, all we\u2019ll be left with is a lot of salty seawater, since the sea level will rise about tenfold,\u00a0and wash over most of our coastal land. In between earthquakes, landslides,\u00a0glacier\u00a0melts, floods, drought, and water wars,\u00a0someone will hold a vigil for the Himalaya, some will curse those damn rogue neutrinos.\n\nBut they\u2019ll have to suck it up. Now we live in the sea.\n\nThis is an updated version of an older piece.<\/em>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Experts have been sounding warnings about glaciers melting at an accelerated rate for decades now. Kerala’s disastrous floods prove how destructive a watery disaster can be. What should we expect in case of a glacial meltdown?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":104,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[62,63,64,65,66,67,120,121,122,123,124,125,19,126,127,128,129,130,131,71,72],"class_list":["post-103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-earth","tag-arre","tag-arre-digital-platform","tag-arre-originals","tag-arre-reads","tag-arre-text-articles","tag-arre-website","tag-climate-change","tag-donald-trump","tag-forest-fire","tag-glaciers-melting","tag-global-warming","tag-himalaya","tag-india","tag-melting-glaciers","tag-paris","tag-trump-paris-climate","tag-trump-paris-climate-change","tag-united-nations","tag-uttarakhand","tag-web-series","tag-web-shows"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat If Glaciers Melted?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Experts have been sounding warnings about glaciers melting at an accelerated rate for decades now. 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