Researchers: Climate change likely caused deadly 2016 avalanche in Tibet
https://news.osu.edu/news/2016/12/09/avalanche/[font face=Serif][font size=5]Researchers: Climate change likely caused deadly 2016 avalanche in Tibet[/font]
[font size=4]Two glaciers collapse within two months in once-stable region [/font]
By: Pam Frost Gorder
Published on December 09, 2016
[font size=3]COLUMBUS, OhioWith a deadly avalanche, it appears climate change may now be affecting a once stable region of the Tibetan Plateau.
Thats the conclusion of an international team of researchers who have published
an analysis of the July 2016 disaster in the Dec. 9 issue of the
Journal of Glaciology.
On July 17, more than
70 million tons of ice broke off from the Aru glacier in the mountains of western Tibet and tumbled into a valley below, taking the lives of nine nomadic yak herders living there.
The most important fact about the avalanche, said Thompson, is that it lasted only four or five minutes (according to witnesses), yet it managed to bury 3.7 square miles of the valley floor in that time. He said somethinglikely meltwater at the base of the glaciermust have lubricated the ice to speed its flow down the mountain.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/jog.2016.122