01-11-2020, 01:52 AM
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51050456
The researchers found plant life in areas where vegetation was not previously known to grow.
In the Everest region, the study found a significant increase in vegetation in all height brackets.
Other researchers and scientists working on glaciers and water systems in the Himalayas have confirmed the expansion of vegetation.
A team used satellite data from 1993 to 2018 to measure the extent of plant cover between the tree-line and the snow-line.
"It (the research) matches the expectations of what would happen in a warmer and wetter climate," said Prof Walter Immerzeel, with the faculty of geosciences at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, who was not involved in the study.
"This is a very sensitive altitudinal belt where the snowline is. A withdrawal of the snowline to higher altitudes in this zone provides opportunity for vegetation to grow."
"Plants are indeed colonising the areas that once were glaciated in some of these Himalayas," said Elizabeth Byers, a vegetation ecologist who has carried out field studies in the Nepalese Himalayas for nearly 40 years.
Global warming is really changing the true nature of the earth. Formerly glaciated areas are now being colonised by plants and this is to show how much the temperature of the earth has risen. There is however no surety of what the effects of the plants will be. Will they lead to a slowing down of the melting of glaciers and ice sheets or will they accelerate the process?
The researchers found plant life in areas where vegetation was not previously known to grow.
In the Everest region, the study found a significant increase in vegetation in all height brackets.
Other researchers and scientists working on glaciers and water systems in the Himalayas have confirmed the expansion of vegetation.
A team used satellite data from 1993 to 2018 to measure the extent of plant cover between the tree-line and the snow-line.
"It (the research) matches the expectations of what would happen in a warmer and wetter climate," said Prof Walter Immerzeel, with the faculty of geosciences at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, who was not involved in the study.
"This is a very sensitive altitudinal belt where the snowline is. A withdrawal of the snowline to higher altitudes in this zone provides opportunity for vegetation to grow."
"Plants are indeed colonising the areas that once were glaciated in some of these Himalayas," said Elizabeth Byers, a vegetation ecologist who has carried out field studies in the Nepalese Himalayas for nearly 40 years.
Global warming is really changing the true nature of the earth. Formerly glaciated areas are now being colonised by plants and this is to show how much the temperature of the earth has risen. There is however no surety of what the effects of the plants will be. Will they lead to a slowing down of the melting of glaciers and ice sheets or will they accelerate the process?