A photograph of Everest taken by a mountaineer in 1921 has revealed alarming loss of ice. The Asia Society (AS) arranged for climber George Mallory’s photo to be mimicked exactly in a bid to compare how Mount Everest looked in the 1920s to now. In a statement, AS said the loss of ice in the Himalaya was “startling” and that the rate of melting over the past 89 years has been “alarming.”
Mallory took the photographs from the north face of the mountain, where a large s-shaped sweep of ice can clearly be seen. Pictures taken in the same spot this year by mountaineer David Breashears, however, show a much depleted Rongbuk Glacier.
The Himalaya is home to the largest sub-polar ice reserves in the world, making the findings vitally important, according to AS. The melt waters from the glaciers on Mount Everest flow into the Ganges, Yangtze, Mekong, Irrawaddy, Brahmaputra, Salween and Yellow rivers. Millions of people depend on such waters for their livelihoods.
AS predicts that if the current rate continues, the glaciers will be severely diminished by the middle of the century. The series of then-and-now photos also show glaciers in retreat in Tibet, Nepal and near K2 in Pakistan.
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