Retreat of Himalayan glaciers
Deccan Herald, 8 September 2009
The Third Pole which consists of the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau, has more than 45,000 individual glaciers which feed all the major river systems of the region. The Yangtze, the Brahmaputra, the Yellow, the Mekong and the Salween are the main rivers of this region. The South Asian Himalayas are the source of these mighty rivers, which are the region's lifeline to 1.3 billion people, who live in the plains. With the increase of global warming, Himalayan glaciers are melting faster than projected and with increase of flooding, rock avalanches, the very water source will be affected in the next three decades. According to Prof. Syed Iqbal Hasnain, one of India's foremost glaciologists from TERI, the Third Pole is the water tower of Asia, and biomass burning and coal fired power plants are the main forcing agent for this glacial melt.