Due to melting and sublimation on Mount Everest’s highest glacier due to human induced climate changes have resulted in loss of ice according to University of Maine- led international research team. At the rate at which the highest glaciers are disappearing Mount Everest expeditions could be climbing over more exposed bedrocks making it more challenging to climb. Snow and ice cover will continue to thin in coming decades according to UMaine climate scientists Mariusz Potocki and Paul Mayewski.
The study points to the critical balance snow covered surfaces provide and snow cover is depleted by changes in sublimation. Everest’s highest glacier has served as a sentinel for this delicate balance has demonstrated that even the roof of the Earth is impacted by anthropogenic source warning. It is estimated thinning rates approaching approximately 2 meters of water per year now the glacier has turned from snowpack to ice. Approximately 55 meters of glacier thinning over 80 times faster than nearly 2,000 years it took to form the ice at the surface. The loss of surface is happening due to melting or vaporization.
“ Even the top of the Everest is impacted by anthropogenic source warning,” says Potocki a glaciochemist and doctoral candidate in the Climate Change Institute who collected the highest ice core on the planet. There were members of the international, multidisciplinary team of scientists led by National Geographic Society and Tribhuvan University. The expedition team installed the two highest weather stations in the world (at 8,430 meters and 7,945 meters), collected the highest-ever ice core (at 8,020 meters).
