Melting peaks

The ghost of the glaciers is once again rising! In the Himalayas, the ice is melting as evidenced by dozens of swelling milky blue lakes that threaten to burst down on to villages when their ice dams melt. A quarter of the world's people rely on Himalayan meltwater, which helps feed the great rivers that plunge down into Asia.

However, this is not scientific research as much as what has been seen and described by the local sherpas and natives. Perhaps there is a big knowledge gap about the Himalayas as there is little beyond satellite imagery as satellite proof. But if local evidence is enough, the glaciers are melting.

Between them the mountains of the Himalayas, the Hindu Kush, Karakorams, Pamirs and Tien Shan store more ice than anywhere outside the north and south poles. There are believed to be about 15,000 glaciers across the Himalayas – 3,800 or so in Nepal alone, according to the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, in Kathmandu.

Last week saw the annual summer minimum of the Arctic ice cap, which has now shrunk to the lowest level satellites have ever recorded. The ice at the roof of the human world is faring little better: mountain glaciers are diminishing at accelerating and historic rates. The lower glaciers are doomed. Kilimanjaro may be bare within a decade, with the Pyrenees set to be ice-free by mid-century and three-quarters of the glaciers in the Alps gone by the same date.

Are we changing the face of the planet irretrievably?