Glacier Water of Himalayan Region (Creative Commons)

As the movement to curb global warming gains momentum, the challenge to make intangible environmental forces and esoteric data relevant to the daily energy consumer remains a formidable obstacle for researchers and environmentalists. 

Perhaps the most media-covered and immediately relatable climate change topic is the melting of the world’s glaciers. 

Any respectable recent environmentalist video montage is not complete without the dramatic and awe-inspiring images of a glacier face calving off into the ocean.

Of course, these images are never complete without a pairing of a doomsday scenario computer animation of water inundating the major coastal cities of the world.

Yet, for all the publicity glacier melting receives in the battle to preserve our Earth, a massive third player is noticeably absent. The region known as the Third Pole, located in the Tibetan Plateau, is the world’s third largest store of ice.

As opposed to the Arctic and Antarctica, the two largest ice stores on earth, the Tibetan Plateau’s glacier’s melt has direct consequences for large populations.

The immense, slow-moving ice rivers of the third pole are often referred to as “Asia’s Water Tower.” The glacial melt pours into the continent's largest rivers, sustaining 1.5 billion people across 10 countries. These rivers span the continent from the Yellow (Huang He) River in the east to the Indus River in the west.

With water conservation and scarcity rapidly becoming among the top issues of today, the disappearance of Asia’s largest water source is a political ticking time bomb. 

Unfortunately, the struggles to preserve the Tibetan glaciers have yet to fully make the leap from the scientific forum to the political arena. The Third Pole suffers from the same troubles that plague its larger ice sheet siblings. Glacial melt rates and the causes of the melt are far from a proven science. Much of our understanding of the changes in the world’s land ice is still primitive. As a result, the public remains skeptical of the science backing glacier melts.

The Tibetan Plateau is still a relatively uncharted territory for climatologists because of its notorious harsh weather conditions and unforgiving landscape. Some of the most powerful tools used by researchers are satellite imagery and photography. 

David Breashears, award-winning filmmaker, photographer, and mountaineer, recently spoke at USC on the retreat of the Tibetan glaciers (sponsored by the Center on Communication Leadership & Policy in conjunction with the USC U.S.-China Institute).

Breashears’ endeavor to raise general awareness about the disappearance of the glaciers takes him high into the thin atmosphere of the Himalayas, where with the help of his Tibetan monk porters, he captures in stunning graphic beauty the glacial landscape. Breashears captures photographs from identical vantage points as past explorers such as George Mallory by retracing their steps. The comparison of current glacier states to those of the past shows a striking decrease in ice mass. 

A team of researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Institute in Lanzhou, led by Liu Shiyin, recently completed an inventory of China’s glaciers. The team documented some 24,300 glaciers using both satellite and ground measurements. Their data shows a 17 percent decrease in total surface area of glaciers since the inventory began about 30 years ago. 

Researchers have attributed the accelerated disappearance of glaciers to the growing release of sooty “black carbon” and greenhouse gases. Using drilled ice cores to analyze black carbon levels in the ice, scientists have calculated that black carbon deposits could increase snow and ice melting by 12 percent to 34 percent, by reducing the glaciers ability to reflect light.

One immediate threat posed by the rapidly melting Himalayan glaciers is glacial lake outburst floods. Syed Iqbal Hasnain, a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Stimson Center, expressed his concern at an Asia Society program this past summer: "The melting trend causes major changes in freshwater flow regimes. As one of the results, the number and size of glacial lakes are increasing.” 

Glacial lake outburst floods occur when a natural dam of ice or rock containing a glacial lake suddenly collapses because the lake has rapidly grown in size or the dam is shattered by avalanches or earthquakes. The resulting floods can be devastating to any communities below the dam.

When experts like Breashears and Hasnain are asked what actions should be taken to slow the melt of the Third Pole, they lay most of the problem's weight on the shoulders of politicians.

In his USC lecture, Breashears emphasized the need for an open international forum including members of local communities, scientists and the top decision makers from China, India and Pakistan. Their work would involve forming a consensus on climate change and glacial melt. Researchers, though, are quick to concede that political collaboration between the three countries in the Himalayan region is far away.

Many scientists believe it is too late to stop the complete disappearance of the world's third largest ice store. But perhaps with the efforts of Breashears and other glacier researchers, the vital water source and natural beauty can still be preserved. The livelihoods of the Himalayan region depend on it. 

Below is an Asia Society and Glacier Research Imaging Project film on Himalayan glaciers.

Reach reporter Tommy Sander here.