Climate Change: An estimate of risk to Himalayan glaciers and environment

Abstract

The climatic changes occurring in Himalayan areas are varied as the structures, lithology, geomorphology and evolutionary history of Himalaya. The water resources of India are dependant upon meltwater discharge which is presently the livelihood for 0.8 billion downstream peoples and significantly impacts them by its increased frequency and magnitude of extreme events. Changes in atmospheric parameters like temperature and precipitation play an important role in changing/ modifying the availability of water resources. Present study intends to highlight the changes in patterns of long-term climatic fluctuations by reanalysing the 100 years of IMD (water portal) data of atmospheric variables like temperature and precipitation with the support of extreme events that occurred in the recent past. The trends in precipitation and temperature data show the spatially variable response for Himalaya in last 100 years with decreasing pattern in all stations of Himalaya except north-west Himalaya; the weakening of Indian summer monsoon precipitation patterns also provide an evident to this fact. An attempt is done in this direction to assess and minimise the losses caused by the hazards and also use this baseline data of water resource management strategies to eradicate the threat of water availability for the billions of people.