1330 / 2019-08-09 15:58:11

Updated Assessment on Climate and Environmental Change in the Mt. Everest (Qomolangma) Region

16、第三极科学 > 默认

Mt. Everest, with an altitude of 8,844.43 meters a.s.l., is the highest mountain in the world. The Everest region is characterized by concentrated glaciers and diverse landscapes, considered as important solid freshwater resources and one of the most sensitive areas to climate change. We performed a comprehensive and updated assessment on the latest climatic and environmental changes in the Everest regions, covering the aspects of climatic characteristics, glacier and glacial-lake changes, atmosphere environment, vegetation dynamic changes, and the impacts of human activities.
The primary findings are, 1) Over the last 50 years, the Everest Region has been experiencing a significant warming trend (0.33°C per decade during 1961-2014) and a steady-going precipitation; 2) Glaciers have been retreating remarkably, glacier-fed lakes have been expanding and river runoffs are increasing, indicative of a clear regional hydrological responses to climate warming; 3) Atmospheric environment of the Everest region remains low level that is comparable to that in other remote areas such as polar regions, however, long-range transport air pollution from South Asia can reach and influence the Everest region, anthropogenic pollutants such as black carbon has increased almost twofold since 1970s, contributing to the accelerated glacier melting. 4) The overall ecosystem over the Everest region tends to be positive, evidenced by increase in grassland area and primary production, advance in vegetation green-up onset date, and delay in dormancy onset date; 5) Local human activities play an important role in both influencing and protecting the environment in the Everest region. Diverse factors, such as tourism, the growth of population and economy, as well as the agriculture-pasturage and etc., together influence the local environment. While at the same time, the implementation of a series of projects devoted to environment protection and sustaining ecosystem are promoting the local development of local economy and the environment protection.
We suggested to formulate coordinated strategies and pertinent measures for coping with the impact of both long-term and short-term environmental changes. Major proposed suggestions include, 1) Enhance the environmental monitoring and research on environmental changes; 2) Foster education and propaganda on environmental protection to improve the public environmental consciousness and the popular involvement in the eco-construction; 3) Develop environmental protection-oriented industry by promoting tourism and upgrading agriculture and animal husbandry; 4) Improving the ecological compensation mechanism and its actualization to elevate incomes of agriculture and animal husbandry; 5) Reinforce the supervision in ecological protection, project construction, and funds management.