Ice on a glacier near the summit of Mount Everest, which took over 2,000 years to form, shrank dramatically in the past three decades due to climate change, as shown in a recent study.
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Doron Erel, a professional mountain climber and the first Israeli to summit Mount Everest in 1992, spoke with i24NEWS about the rapidly melting ice.
"It makes a big difference, maybe not immediately, but the faster a glacier melts the faster it moves," Erel explained."Eventually, if Everest loses all its glaciers it will be kind of a monster scramble of rocks like Aconcagua in South America, just higher."
South Col, the highest glacier of ice on the world's tallest mountain, lost 180 feet of thickness in 25 years, an amount that took millennia to accumulate. The study published in Climate and Atmospheric Science of the Nature journal is a severe warning of rapid glacial melting at Earth's highest point, signaling more frequent avalanches and drying-up of water sources.
Himalayan glaciers, like South Col, are critical water sources for nearly two billion people. They also feed 10 of the world's most important river systems and help supply billions of people with food and energy.
Future climbers will also be posed with new challenges – expeditions will face avalanches, thinning snowpack, and more exposed bedrock, making Everest more dangerous to climb.
"Snow can change a lot. On rock, you always know what you're going to get," Erel told i24NEWS.
"When it will be a big pile of rocks, I assume it will be easier (to climb). But until then, with all the glaciers melting and moving faster, at this stage, it's much more dangerous."
This article was first published by i24NEWS.
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