BEIJING: To check the effects of climate change on Asia’s” liquid tower,” China has built weather stations on Cho Oyu, the sixth-highest mountain in the world on the Tibetan-Nepalese border.
The Himalayas, which are home to the planet’s tallest mountains and the source of water for the river that hundreds of millions of people rely on, are being negatively impacted by climate change, according to researchers.
According to the official Xinhua news agency on Friday( Oct 6 ), a Chinese team has set up five automatic weather stations on Cho Oyu since the end of September, at altitudes ranging from 4, 950m to its summit at 8, 201m.
For the first time, specimens of snow and ice had been gathered at the mountain, according to Xinhua.
According to preliminary research, Cho Oyu’s snow part was the thickest among mountains above 8, 000 meters, with a width of more than 70 meters being observed, according to Xinhua.
A Chinese weather system in the Himalayas is expanded by the wind channels on Cho Oyu, which means” Turquoise Goddess” in Tibetan. These stations monitor the 8, 848-meter Everest and Shishapangma in Tibet and Nepal, respectively.
After one of the warmest seasons in the northern hemisphere this time, it has become urgent to monitor the effects of global warming. Experts said on Thursday that the shrinking snow has caused Mount Blanc, the highest peak in Western Europe, to lose more than 2 meters in height over the past two years.
In the most recent instance of extreme weather events in the hills range that experts have attributed to climate change, this week’s heavy weather in northern Sikkim state of India burst the banks of a glacial lake and caused flash floods, killing at least 40 persons.
According to Yang Wei, a scientist at the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, high-altitude surveillance was essential to prevent catastrophes like storms and snow avalanches as glaciers melt, according to Xinhua.