(TibetanReview.net, Mar26’25) – In more news from more research on the phenomenon and effects of climate change in the Tibetan Plateau region, a UNESCO report published this month has said glacier areas in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), mostly in Tibetan territories, had shrunk by 26% since 1960, with 7,000 small glaciers having disappeared completely over the past 60 years and glacial retreat intensifying in recent years.
The report said glaciers around the globe were disappearing faster than ever, with the largest glacial mass loss on record taking place in the last three years.
As the important water towers continue to shrink, less availability of freshwater is expected to contribute to greater competition for water resources, environmental groups have warned. Glacier retreat also poses new disaster risks, noted Reuters Mar 26.
Glaciers in the PRC are located mainly in the west and north regions, in the regions of Tibet Autonomous Region, Qinghai and Xinjiang (East Turkestan), as well as mostly in the Tibetan territories in the provinces of Sichuan, Yunnan, and Gansu.
The findings were released on Mar 21, the first World Day for Glaciers, as researchers presented the PRC’s third glacier inventory at the 3rd Chinese Conference of Cryospheric Science in Lingshui, Hainan province, noted China’s official chinadaily.com.cn Mar 26.
The reports said that the data published on the website of the Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources of the Chinese Academy of Sciences show that the total glacier area in the PRC was around 46,000 square kilometres, with around 69,000 glaciers in 2020.
This compared to around 59,000 square kilometres and around 46,000 glaciers in the PRC between 1960 and 1980, the study was stated to show.
Besides, between the second inventory completed in 2008 and the third, the glacier area has declined by about 6% — equivalent to 5.2% per decade — indicating a rapid acceleration in glacier retreat in recent years, said the chinadaily.com.cn report.
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The report said global glacier inventory efforts, including by China, began in 1978, focusing on the distribution and volume of mountain glaciers. China’s first and second glacier inventories were published in 2002 and 2014, respectively, with research detailing changes in the PRC’s glaciers from the latter half of the 20th century to the early 21st century.
The Reuters report noted that the Tibetan plateau is known as the world’s Third Pole for the amount of ice long locked in the high-altitude wilderness.
From a global perspective, the report said that the dramatic ice loss, from the Arctic to the Alps, from South America to the Tibetan Plateau, is expected to accelerate as climate change, caused by the burning of fossil fuels, pushing global temperatures ever higher. This would likely exacerbate economic, environmental and social problems across the world as sea levels rise and these key water sources dwindle, the UNESCO report was cited as saying.