Translated from Sci-tech Daily     6^th, Sept.

After more than a month’s investigation to Mt. Himalayas and Mt. Gangdis, Sino-US joint expedition returned to Lahsa recently. Prof. Yao Tandong, the team leader and director of ITP told reporter that their expedition confirmed the all-round shrink of high Asian glaciers represented by Tibetan Plateau glacier at an unprecedented rate.

This expedition is one of a series of scientific activities under the auspices of Innovation Program within CAS and National Natural Science Foundation of China(NSFC). During the past month, scientists have conducted complex investigation into the atmosphere, glaciers, lake and other factors, to study the changes the plateau has been undergoing under global climate change.

Past expeditions had proved the retreat of glaciers in northern and eastern plateau due global warming; while this time, scientists found that glaciers in southern and western Tibet are melting away even faster than those in central Tibet. High Asian glaciers centered around the Tibetan Plateau totaled 46298, covering an area of 59406km² and storing 5590m³ potential water. Since 20^th century, those high Asian glaciers accelerated in their retreat under global warming, esp. in the 1990s, when the glaciers on the whole began to retreat, and some of them were much faster than before. The all-round retreat of high Asian glaciers would cause large deficit to glacial storage, which in the long run would break the balance of glaciers, leading to unpredictable ecological disaster, said Prof Yao.

Scientific investigations to lakes in western Tibet, esp. to the Namucuo Lake in central Tibet have shown that the total coverage of lakes on the Tibetan Plateau was decreasing. But there are some lakes, with the existence of giant glaciers or glacial crowds on their upper ranges, increased in their coverage, as the water supply brought by glacial melting surpassed its evaporation caused by warming.

In respect of atmosphere, scientists mainly looked into the features of energy-water circulation under global warming. To facilitate their investigations, they have been setting up a large number of scientific apparatus in central, western and southern Tibet. Their present observation indicated that both the air and ground temperature on the Tibetan Plateau rose.

Detailed ice core records, snow and ice particles and carbon black have also been collected from the Namunani Glacier, southeast of the Plateau. Radar technology found the glacier at this region as thick as 206m, thus acknowledged it to be the thickest valley glacier of China. The depth of the ice contributed Namunani Glacier to be the idealist place for ice core drilling, but the preservation of such a wholesome temperature record is threatened by accelerated melting of the glacier. Prof. Yao was quite sorry for that.