Agostino Da Polenza and the late professor Ardito Desio set up the Nepal Climate Observatory Pyramid (EvK2Cnr) in a unique collaboration between the Italian Research National Council and the Nepal Academy of Science and Technology, at an altitude of 5,050 metres in Lobuje.
The EvK2Cnr has been doing research into the effect of global warming on the Himalayas, and recently turned its attention to the impact of ‘black carbon’ on accelerating the melting of ice and snow.
Black carbon is fine soot and ash produced by diesel exhausts, thermal power plants, brick kiln smokestacks, and forest fires, but is often confused with gaseous carbon dioxide.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), along with scientists and international research institutions, says there is evidence increased black carbon deposits on Himalayan glaciers make them absorb more sunlight, accelerating glacial and snow melt.
Historical emissions of greenhouse gases by industrialised nations have traditionally been blamed for melting of the world’s permafrost, leading to sea-level rise. Today India and China have overtaken the rich countries in total greenhouse-gas emissions, and there has been a big increase in their black-carbon generation.
India alone burns 25 million tonnes of coal annually just to fire its brick kilns. Brick kilns in the Nepali capital Kathmandu are responsible for half the air pollution, which in winter sits at ground level due to temperature inversion. The soot particles from these smokestacks mix with diesel exhaust to form a layer of soot over southern Asia that is thousands of kilometres long and up to 4,000 metres thick. Prevailing winds waft them over Himalayan glaciers, melting them faster.
“Although glacier melting is predominantly due to global temperature rise, the deposition of pollutant particles like black carbon can enhance this effect,” says Paolo Bonasoni of the Italy-based Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (ISAC).
Wind-blown ash from huge pre-monsoon forest fires and their deposit on glaciers may reduce the albedo effect (reflectivity) of the snows by about five percent, and deposits have grown three-fold in the past 40 years, researchers say. More
