Climate Crisis: Why China is putting blankets on a glacier

The glaciers all across the world are retreating and thinning as the Earth warms. Thus, in an effort to stem its melting amid rising temperatures brought on by global warming, scientists in China have blanketed a portion of a remote glacier. The team covered a 500 square metre (5,381 square foot) patch of Dagu, a rapidly melting glacier in northwest China’s Sichuan Province, using geotextile blankets, a form of environmentally friendly cloth, according to Dailymail. Scientists from the Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources started the experiment in August. The location, which is around 5,000 metres (16,404 feet) above sea level, was picked by the experts because it had been melting more quickly than many other Chinese glaciers. As a temperate glacier, Dagu Glacier is at the melting point and is composed of both liquid water and glacier ice. According to one of the researchers, Wang Feiteng, it declines more fast than typical alpine glaciers. Also read: ‘A year of extremes’: What World Meteorological Organization’s 2022 report says about the state of global climate The experiment This follows an experiment that the Chinese Academy of Sciences carried out in August 2019 on a 500 square metre piece of the same Glacier, covering the region with geotextile blankets. After 2.5 months, they discovered that the blanketed area had ice that was up to one metre thicker than the unprotected portions. [caption id=“attachment_12838622” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Glaciers in China’s bleak, rugged Qilian mountains are disappearing at a shocking rate as global warming brings unpredictable change and raises the prospect of crippling, long-term water shortages, scientists say. Reuters[/caption] The experiment “demonstrates the blankets” ability to block solar radiation and heat exchange on the glacier’s surface, according to scientist Wang, who was quoted in Shanghai Daily. Wang urged the general public to focus more on the fate of tiny glaciers. He says the melting of glaciers worldwide has accelerated and tiny glaciers with an area smaller than one square kilometre are particularly vulnerable and “might soon disappear without human intervention.” Despite the danger, according to Wang, most research still concentrates on the factors that cause melting rather than ways to stop glacier melting. He further stated that the study team would test the heat-blocking technique on additional glaciers in China, particularly those with abundant tourism resources and others that had previously been seriously impacted by climate change. According to The Independent, the experiment was reportedly motivated by summers before refrigerators when ice cream was kept under quilted comforters. In order to shield the ice underneath, the experiment’s geotextile material is made to reflect light and deflect heat. Also read: Why Indian Army activating satellite-based internet on Siachen Glacier is a big deal Similar methods used in other countries For over ten years, people in Switzerland have been preserving glaciers in a similar way. Since 2009, residents who live close to the Rhone Glacier have hiked into the southern Swiss Alps each spring to wrap the location in white thermal blankets, according to Live Science. The Swiss glacier, which is 12,000 feet above sea level, has melted so swiftly over the past 150 years that it needs to be stopped by a huge tarpaulin. From spring to autumn, when the ice field is most susceptible, these sheets spanning around five acres of the glacier are left in place. According to AFP, tarpaulin was also discovered covering Italy’s Presena glacier in 2020. Presena, which is in Northern Italy, has shrunk by more than one-third since 1993. In the height of summer, the covering keeps the ice from melting too quickly. Wion News reported that the tarpaulin project in Italy began in 2008 when the team used to cover 30,000 square metres. By 2020, they covered over 100,000 square metres. The tarp is set down every year at a height of 3,000 metres. The tarp is precisely positioned across the mountain and then sewn tight to keep hot air out. To prevent its movement, it is then covered with sandbags. Also read: China's melting glacier among world's largest freshwater sources, scientists worried Melting Glaciers The report of blanketing glaciers comes after a study in November 2020 revealed that the glaciers in China’s isolated Qilian Mountains are melting as a result of the climate crisis at a “shocking” rate, which could eventually lead to severe water shortages for the area. Glaciers are retreating as a result of rising temperatures, and the process is accelerating. [caption id=“attachment_12838632” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Meltwater from the Laohugou No. 12 glacier, flows past one of the faces of the glacier in the Qilian mountains, Subei Mongol Autonomous County in Gansu province, China. Reuters[/caption] Since the 1950s, when scientists established China’s first monitoring station to observe it, the greatest glacier in the mountains has receded nearly 450 metres along the parched northeastern edge of the Tibetan plateau, as per The Independent. The average temperature in the region has increased by 1.5 degrees Celsius since monitoring started in the 1950s, and there is no sign of a slowdown in global warming, so the future is bleak for the 2,684 glaciers in the Qilian range. Due to recent global climate change, the thawing of glaciers has accelerated worldwide. Glaciers in Asia’s Hindu Kush Himalaya could lose up to 75 per cent of their volume by century’s end due to global warming, causing both dangerous flooding and water shortages for the 240 million people who live in the mountainous region, according to a new report by the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), an intergovernmental scientific authority. The Hindu Kush Himalaya stretches 3,500 km (2,175 miles) across Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan. According to a 2014 research, human activity was responsible for around 70 per cent of the global glacier loss between 1991 and 2010. With inputs from Reuters and AFP