Jammu, November 5
Amidst growing concerns over global warming and receding glaciers, there is some good news from Jammu and Kashmir: not all Himalayan glaciers are melting and many in the state and in its neighbourhood are stable for years now, finds out a study conducted by Jammu University.

But, such stable glaciers have their own disadvantages: non-melting glaciers will mean dry rivers and lesser water down the plains, thus implying a serious water crisis, says the team of eight scientists, led by geologist Prof RK Ganjoo, whose study spanned over two decades.

Instead of global warming, claims Ganjoo, micro-climatic conditions like local wind circulation pattern, rock colour, debris cover, including its thickness, tree line and vegetation play a major role in the melting of the Himalayan glaciers. The findings of the JU team have been recently published by Springers, a US-based publication house on climate change, and Current Science, an Indian journal.

Notably, global warming and melting glaciers are the most serious issued haunting environmentalists world-wide. India, too, is under scrutiny over initiating measures to prevent environment and emission of carbon — a major cause behind global warming.

North-western Himalayan glaciers, including those in Kashmir, Zaskar and Siachen, are melting at a much slower pace that those in north-eastern parts of the country, finds the study.

Interestingly, the scientists began bursting the global warming bubble on a simple logic: If glaciers are melting fast, then why are rivers drying up? Reason (as per them): Glaciers don’t melt due to global warming but due to a multitude of factors, main being local climatic conditions - temperature and rain. While rain pours heavily on glaciers on north-eastern Himalayas, it doesn’t reach in proper intensity the high-altitude glaciers in and around Kashmir. As a result: low melting of glaciers.

“The facts (brought forth by the report) will remove several misconceptions of UN’s Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which virtually has done no field research on Himalayan glaciers till date,” says Prof Ganjoo.

Besides, claims Ganjoo, the report would startle the IPCC and scientists belonging to a particular school of thought, who feel glaciers across the globe may vanish in next 50 years. “Scientists belonging to our school of thought are not getting heard for many years. Now the world is listening,” says Prof Ganjoo, geologist at Jammu University’s Regional Centre for Field Operations and Research of Himalayan Glaciology.

Global temperature, too, claims he, has not witnessed much change over the past several years, as 1998 was the warmest year and after that the temperature has not witnessed much rise. “But, the duration of summers has definitely increased as compared to winters,” he says.