Black Soot Could Be The Cause Of Melting Himalayas
22 December 2009 | Green News | No Comments
The Himalayas are the highest mountain system on the Planet. Home to more than 10,000 glaciers and with over 100 peaks, each exceeding heights of 7,200 m, the Himalayas are , even if surprisingly for some, also the place where one of the Earth’s largest fresh water resource is located, being third only after the North and South Poles. It is dependent to the life of so many people and if were to be polluted in any way it would bring hazard to many countries. Some new research suggest that the cause of the melting Himalayas could be just that: pollution.
The Himalayan surface covered by glaciers has been dramatically declining since the 1960′s by more than 20 percent, scientists discovered. The rate of warming of the area surrounding the Himalayas is almost two times greater than the Planet’s average, measured in the last 30 years.
The research comes to show that cause of this calamity are not entirely the greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide, which is usually thought to be responsible for the general warming. Instead they came to the conclusion that the local, industrial pollution, and its resulting black soot could be the cause of the melting Himalayas.
The compound known as black soot, or black carbon, is the result of incomplete fossil fuel burnings. They come from the major cities situated near the Himalayas such as Delphi, Dhaka and Karachi, through the use of diesel engines, coal-powered plants and others. This soot than mixes with dust particles from the nearby desserts, resulting in the creation of a big brown cloud, visible from space, which absorbs the sun’s radiation. Eventually, this particles rise up in the atmosphere and produces more rain in northern India, which later brings up more warmth to the region. The direct outcome of this phenomenon is the change of timing and energy of the seasonal monsoon, finally conducting even more warm air to glacier in the region, hasting their melt. Other correlations between the black soot deposition and melting rate has been observed, when the compound is accumulated on the glacier themselves. In this way, the amount of reflected sunlight, along with the amount of absorbed heat is reduced.
Tags: black carbon, Black soot, brown cloud, carbon dioxide, dust particles, Earth, glaciers, greenhouse gases, Himalayas, Melting, Planet, Pollution, radiation, research, warming