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solonavi 14 August 2007 Global Warming 138 views No Comment Print This Post  Email This Post

AP

Huge haze clouds over the Indian Ocean contribute as much to atmospheric warming in Asia as greenhouse gases and play a significant role in the melting of the Himalayan glaciers, according to a study published Thursday.

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Researchers concluded that the pollution – mostly caused by the burning of wood and plant matter for cooking in India and other South Asian countries – enhanced heating of the atmosphere by around 50 percent and contributed to about half of the temperature increases blamed in recent decades for the glacial retreat.

Veerabhadran Ramanathan said his team’s research shows the brown clouds are an additional factor in the melting of glaciers, along with overall global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

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Scientist have expressed concerns the Himalayan glaciers will melt entirely and the rivers will run dry for months at a time, fed only by annual rains like the monsoon that sweeps across the subcontinent every summer.

Melting is exacerbated by India’s and China’s fast-growing, coal-fed economies. Scientists say the glaciers are melting at a rate of up to 49 feet a year and predict they could shrink even more with temperatures projected to rise as much as 11 degrees by 2100.

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Ramanathan is now in India working on a pilot project with the Energy Research Institute in New Delhi that would provide fuel alternatives to 1,000 families in Kumaon region in the foothills of the Himalayas. If the project proves successful, he said he is hoping it can be expanded in other parts of India.

“If the pollution increases, the glacier retreat will be much worse than projected,” he said. “It now depends on what energy path that Indian, China and Asia will take.”