Series of before and after taken panaromic images from the Himalayas show the reduction in the amount of ice in the Himalayas.

The first set of photos (black and white) were taken in 1956 by Fritx Muller and the second recent set of photos were taken by American mountain geographer Alton Byers. The two set of photos clearly show the change in amount of ice in the Himalayas depicting the change in climate in the Himalayas. According to Byers man glaciers at low altitudes have now disappeared entirely and many large ones have lost around half of their volume. He is also worried that some of those glaciers have formed huge glacial lakes at the foot of the glacier threatening downstream communities in case of an outburst.

According to UN environment Program Nepal’s average temperature has increased by 1.5C since 1975. This is very worrying because at current rate of global warming, the Himalayan glaciers could shrink from 500,000 square Km to 100,00 square Km by 2030s. Since Himalayan glaciers feed into major Asian river system, if glacial meltdown in such a way occurs it could lead to massive droughts affecting billions of people depending upon those rivers.

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[Via Guardian]