07/03/2021

The Himalayan Hazards Nobody Is Monitoring

BBC - Navin Singh Khadka

Retreating glaciers can destabilise the ground below, making them prone to landslides. Getty Images

Retreating glaciers in the Himalayas are not only dangerously filling up glacial lakes but they are also causing other hazards that are not being monitored, scientists have warned.

The recent flash flood disaster in India's Uttarakhand state, they say, is the latest example of such a perilous knowledge gap.

The Himalayas have the largest number of glaciers on Earth outside the poles and they have lost billions of tonnes of ice due to accelerated melting caused by global warming.

"There is simply no comprehensive understanding of what actually is happening in terms of such hazards," said Professor Jeffrey Kargel, a senior geologist in the US who has researched a number of disasters in the Himalayas and who is also looking into the Uttarakhand disaster.

"We are just reactive when incidents like what happened in Uttarakhand happen. We are not monitoring the glaciers with such hazard attributes, at least not the majority of them."

Dangers of retreating glaciers

Experts say when glaciers retreat or thin out, some of them can become dangerous. For instance, in some cases, remaining ice of retreated glaciers can hang perilously on steep walls of mountains and can collapse at any time.

It is also possible that thinned or retreated glaciers can destabilise the ground below and around them which they would have otherwise buttressed. This can make the area prone to landslides, rockfall or icefall and even potentially lead to the collapse of entire mountain slopes.

Scientists say such events can also block rivers and rivulets below that eventually burst, sweeping away everything in their path - just like what seems to have happened in Uttarakhand recently, according to preliminary findings.

But they say they don't know where exactly such glacier-related dangers are lurking and which human settlements and infrastructure downstream are under threat.

Most studies on Himalayan glaciers have focused on their retreat and glacial lakes. Getty Images

The difficult geography of the Himalayas makes such monitoring extremely challenging, they add.

"There are more than 50,000 glaciers in the Himalayas and the Hindu Kush region and only 30 of them are being closely observed, including field studies," said Muhammad Farooq Azam, a glaciologist with the Indian Institute of Technology, Indore.

"Only around 15 of those studies have been published. We need to be observing our glaciers more closely, particularly because so many factors are at play."

Earthquakes and climate

Scientists say as the youngest mountain ranges in the world, the Himalayas are still growing and earthquakes often destabilise their slopes.

Changing snowfall and rainfall patterns in the wake of climate change make the mountains more vulnerable, they add.

And the warming-related changes in the glaciers make things worse, they warn.

A glacier in Tibet's Aru mountain suddenly collapsed in 2016 causing massive ice avalanche that killed nine people and hundreds of livestock.

Earthquakes also destabilise mountain slopes in the Himalayas. Getty Images

A second glacier on the same mountain collapsed unexpectedly just a few months later.

Experts say an avalanche of ice and rock from the Siachen glacier in Kashmir in 2012 killed nearly 140 people, most of them Pakistani soldiers.

'Less glaciers, more landslides'

A recent study of some high mountains of Asia - including the western Himalayas, the eastern part of the Pamir, Karakoram and south of the Hindu Kush mountain range - linked the number of larger landslides and their increased frequency between 1999 and 2018 to the retreat of glaciers.

Scientists with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who conducted the study with the help of satellite images from the United States Geological Survey, identified 127 such landslides that had happened between 2009-2018.

"Our results show a shift in the frequency-area distribution that indicates an increasing trend of large landslides over the last decade. A decline in glacier area is associated with the increase in landslide area," said the study, published in the journal Nature in January.

Hydropower dams are at increased risk because of flash floods in the Himalayan region. Getty Images

Dalia Kirschbaum, a landslide expert who heads Nasa's hydrological science lab, said dangers associated with retreating glaciers were becoming evident.

"Before, for instance, those rocks on the mountain slopes were glued by glaciers. And now if there are no glaciers, those rocks are hanging and that is a potential danger."

A special report on cryosphere by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2018 said: "Glacier retreat and permafrost thaw have decreased the stability of mountain slopes and integrity of infrastructure."

Cryosphere is the part of the planet that has water in a frozen state such as mountain glaciers, continental ice sheets, snow and ice covered areas, and sea ice.

Focus on glacial lakes

Of the limited studies on Himalayan glaciers to date, most are focused on their accelerated melting and whether that will dangerously fill up glacial lakes, causing them to burst.

Some of them have also looked into what could happen to glacier-fed rivers in the region if glacial retreat accelerated with rising temperature.

But critics say glacial lakes have received all the attention while other hazards associated with fast-melting glaciers have been ignored.

A study has linked larger and frequent landslides in high mountains of Asia to the retreat of glaciers. Getty Images

"It is something that has received less attention," said Summer Rupper, professor of geography at the University of Utah, who has studied changes in Himalayan glaciers, including with the help of spy satellite images.

"That could be because disasters like avalanches and icefalls have been rare and glacier-related hazards have been episodic."

Experts with the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, which has been working in the Himalayan region for many years, say glacial-lake related floods have historically caused more problems in the region.

"As these floods can affect people without warning far from the glacier themselves, it makes this particular hazard very dangerous," said Miriam Jackson, programme co-ordinator with the centre's cryosphere initiative.

'Frozen glacial studies'

India's own government agencies have been criticised for not paying adequate attention to the threat.

"We had initiated a centre in 2009 to study glaciers and that was supposed to be developed into India's national institute of glaciers," said Dr DP Dobhal, a senior glaciologist who recently retired from the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, an autonomous body under the Ministry of Science.

"That never happened and, as a result, studies of glaciers were significantly affected and around one dozen glaciologists that we had trained became jobless."

Very few glaciers in the Himalayas are being studied. Getty Images

The Indian government has eight national missions under its National Action Plan on Climate Change and one of them is "sustaining the Himalayan ecosystem".

Its goal states it should look at "the development and adoption of new methods for assessing the health of the Himalayan ecosystem including those of glaciers and create a database of the same".

Some experts say tension between India and its neighbours like China and Pakistan, that share borders in the Himalayas, has also been a major hindrance.

"They need to come together, they need to share information on the glaciers across borders," said Anjal Prakash, who was a lead co-ordinating author for the IPCC special report on ocean and cryosphere.

"Only then we will be able to comprehensively monitor the dangers associated with retreating glaciers and can prepare ourselves to deal with disasters." 

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'Best Case' Goals For Climate Warming Which Could Still Result In Massive Wildfire Risk

Phys.org - Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology

In a new study, scientists have found that by projecting two different types of fire weather conditions, an additional half-degree of warming could drastically increase the likelihood and significance of blazes worldwide. Credit: Pexels

The landmark 2015 Paris Agreement resulted in multiple studies examining the impact of global temperature increases, but these rarely investigate the effect of warming on "fire weather" conditions. 

Now, in a new study, scientists have found that by projecting two different types of fire weather conditions, an additional half-degree of warming could drastically increase the likelihood and significance of blazes worldwide.

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change agreed to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 2.0°C and, ideally, to 1.5°C, over preindustrial levels. 

However, even before that treaty was signed, scientists had already warned that those "best case" targets were unlikely to be achievable. Consequently, many weather studies are built with models that simulate much higher levels of climate .

Recently, researchers from South Korea, Japan, and the United States have found that by projecting the fire weather conditions under two mildly varying warming levels—one in which the global climate warms by 1.5°C and the other by 2°C—even just a half-degree of warming could significantly increase the likelihood and significance of wildfires!

"When it comes to the conditions that make wildfires more likely, a little bit of warming goes a long way," explained lead author Rackhun Son, Ph.D. candidate at Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST), Korea, "but, of course, this is troubling, because it is quite unlikely that we will only be experiencing a little bit of warming."

"Although it is reasonable to look at fire weather under more extreme circumstances, there is little sense in making goals without a good understanding of what might happen if you were to reach those goals," said co-author Seung-Hee Kim of Chapman University, "so, we asked 'what would happen if we did reach these goals? Would the fire conditions not become as severe?'"

That answer is complex, but this study's key finding is that just a half a degree of additional warming would likely create a notably greater danger of fire on the most widely inhabited continents, with dangers particularly concentrated in the Amazon rainforest and African savanna, and around the Mediterranean. 

"We also provided evidence that places like Australia and Indonesia are likely to reach peak levels of fire susceptibility even before we reach that lower threshold," said co-author Simon Wang of Utah State University.

The study does provide a silver lining of hope to this cloud of danger. Commenting on the implications of their findings, Dr. Wang comments, "If we were somehow able to suppress this extra half a degree of warming, we could reduce climate-driven extreme fire activities in many places, potentially saving many lives and billions of dollars."

The research has been published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

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(UK) How New Social Housing Can Help Fight Climate Change

The Conversation - 

Houses as power stations. Shutterstock/Studio Harmony

Author
 is a PhD Researcher, Climate Change Research, Manchester University
Homes are the places we spend most of our time, especially during lockdown.

Heating your home in winter can be expensive, and comes at a huge environmental cost too.

Technology to make homes more self sufficient could help the UK decarbonise, while also make homes cheaper to run – something that’s crucially needed for those on lower incomes.

Housing in the UK is considered some of the poorest in Europe when it comes to energy efficiency. At the same time, homeless charity Shelter reported in 2019 that 1,157,044 British households are on the waiting list for social housing.

With this in mind, there’s a drive to improve the performance across all new homes that need to be constructed in the UK. New social housing, which is supplied to those who cannot afford to purchase or rent a home in the open housing market, can be part of the solution, by providing a safe, secure and climate resilient home for social housing tenants.

Like all other new buildings built in the UK, social housing has to comply with regulations. Currently, this includes requirements for fire safety, drainage and energy conservation. But the rules around energy conservation have not been updated since 2016, and are under review.

The new energy regulation hopes to address issues of poor insulation and reliance on heating, to ensure future homes are energy efficient with low carbon heating solutions.

Of course, homes with high levels of insulation in the walls, floors and roof will be more energy efficient. But where the energy or power comes from also matters – particularly for those on low incomes.

Homes as power stations

In 2018, 10.3% of UK households experienced fuel poverty. This means these households were in a situation where spending money on energy services would push the household income below the poverty line.

On-site renewables can be part of the solution, especially for social housing, where significant numbers of families are currently facing a choice between heat and food.

This awful situation can be avoided – or at least stemmed – by building renewable power generation and low carbon heat sources into the homes themselves, like integrated solar or thermal panels in roofs. By constructing these into the fabric of the roofs, they can be a design feature while providing a viable energy generation source for the home.

For new estates, there’s the option of wider district heating or group ground source heat pumps, which take heat directly from the ground for use in the home. Air source heat pumps can also be used in the home. This technology uses hot air from outside to heat the home as well as hot water for use – similar to how a fridge works, but in reverse.

Heat pumps take energy from the ground. Shutterstock/all_is_magic

A project in Swansea, Wales, is looking into using homes as mini power stations.

The pilot could see more than 10,000 homes with heat pumps, solar panels and large batteries for energy storage.

The results of projects like this will be vital for learning how to progress with new designs for social homes.

Wind turbines, while suitable in some rural locations, are not entirely practical for housing developments. Solar panels are much more suitable and likely to be part of the solution for decarbonising social housing – even in places which do not receive much sunlight.

Cooling

While it might be hard to imagine at the moment, in the future many people in the UK will potentially face overheating. This could cause health problems including muscle cramps, swelling and potentially heat stroke.

And so there’s also another important element to consider when making new homes in the UK climate resilient. As the climate warms, the demand for heating will go down. However, it’s predicted that the demand for cooling for homes will increase, as people and buildings overheat.

The UK climate impact projections from the Met Office report the UK will most likely see a warmer and wetter climate in the future. People in low income families are likely to be more negatively affected by this than those who are better off.

The worst case scenario for this would be the wholesale introduction of domestic air conditioning units, given their enormous demand on energy. However, there are other options to explore. Integrated design features, such as solar shading – controlling the amount of sunlight let into a building – could easily reduce the potential demand for artificial cooling.

The future of carbon reduction in the UK will need a mixture of solutions. Homes make up part of the solution to be part of a low carbon future. By building homes designed to withstand projected climate change, we can reduce the associated carbon emissions as well as preventing the potential risks of overheating as the climate warms.

By future-proofing our homes, we can address the issue of decarbonisation, fuel poverty and improved home design for now, but also for future generations, who will be the first to experience the full effects of climate change. The solutions are out there – it’s time to start implementing them.

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