Locals, glaciologists gather to pay tribute to dying glacier Yala of Nepal Himalayas

Kathmandu, May 13 (PTI) Locals and glaciologists from four glaciated countries in the Hindu Kush Himalayas (HKH) gathered to mark the accelerating disappearance of Nepal’s Yala Glacier in Langtang on Tuesday.

Yala, which has shrunk by 66 per cent and retreated 784 metres since it was first measured in the 1970s, is projected to be one of the first Nepali glaciers to join the growing numbers of glaciers declared “dead” globally, according to a statement issued by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD).

More than 50 people, including Buddhist monks and members of local community, and glacier experts from Bhutan, China, India, and Nepal completed the arduous high-altitude trek to attend the “poignant” tribute event on Monday, that featured a Buddhist ceremony, speeches, and the unveiling of two granite memorial plaques which will sit at the foot of where the glacier now stands.

Yala is notable not just for its rapid retreat but also as it is located close to Kathmandu compared to other glacierised areas, for the central role it has played in advancing cryosphere research in a region that is known for lacking research capacity.

About 100 people, including Afghan, Chinese, Indian, Nepali and Pakistani nationals, have trained as glaciologists on Yala since ICIMOD started conducting training field visits to the site in 2011, and the glacier has served as a research site for half a century.

Despite its importance in the provision of water for river flow on which livelihood of over a billion people depends and the fact that mountains in the region hold the largest mass of ice and snowpack outside the two geographic polar regions, glaciers in the Hindu Kush Himalayas have not been well researched.

Yala is one of just seven glaciers in the entire 3,500 km-long arc of the Hindu Kush Himalayas to have been monitored annually for a decade or more and it is one of 38 glaciers with in-situ measurements, providing crucial data on the speed and extent of losses.

Earth’s mountains have lost close to nine trillion tonnes of ice since records started in 1975 -- the equivalent of a 2.72-metre thick block of ice, the size of India. On current melt rates, many glaciers worldwide will not survive the 21st century, warn experts.

The stones left at the base of the glacier carry messages by two noted authors, Manjushree Thapa and Andri Snaer Magnason, in English, Nepali and Tibetan. Both authors have also supported ICIMOD’s #SaveOurSnow campaign and asked for their remuneration to be donated to local climate action.

“Yala, where the gods dream high in the mountains, where the cold is divine," says the inscription written by Thapa. "Dream of life in rock, sediment, and snow, in the pulverizing of ice and earth, in meltwater pools the colour of sky. Dream of a glacier and the civilizations downstream." "A message to the future: Yala glacier is one of 54,000 glaciers in the Hindu Kush Himalayas, most of which are expected to vanish this century due to global warming," writes Magnason. "This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done." Yala is the first glacier in Asia and the third glacier worldwide to carry a version of these words by Magnason. Plaques bearing his message also sit at the site of the world’s first glacier funeral, which took place in Magnason’s native Iceland in 2019, for OK Glacier, and at the site of the funeral for Ayoloco glacier in Mexico in 2021.

In 2021, ICIMOD, with the United Nations, marked the disappearance of Lemthang Glacier in Bhutan, which was wiped out by a glacial lake outburst flood in 2017.

The tribute to Yala was organised by the ICIMOD, working with local authority partners, including Gosaikunda Rural Municipality Ward No 4 of Nepal. PTI SBP GSP GSP