Cutting pollution to lockdown level can save Himalayan glaciers, says study

Aksheev Thakur

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New Delhi, December 21

Reducing air pollution to levels experienced during Covid-19 lockdown in 2020 could safeguard Himalayan glaciers, a new study has mentioned.

Titled ‘Air pollution reductions caused by the Covid-19 lockdown open up a way to preserve the Himalayan glaciers’, the study has been published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics journal.

It found that the reduction in air pollution and greenhouse gases reduced the melting of glaciers. The study said the economic slowdown induced due to Covid-19 pandemic led to a drastic reduction in public and freight transportation, industrial emissions, and energy use which resulted in a substantial decline in the emissions of several pollutants.

“It caused an enhancement in the snow cover fraction and in the snow mass corresponding to a decrease in snowmelt and in surface water runoff. As a result, the water content of the reservoir increased considerably by 4 per cent to 59 per cent,” the study said.

It said if the emissions of air pollutants were reduced to pre-lockdown levels, snow melt could be reduced by 10-50 per cent. “The reduction of air pollution to levels similar with those recorded during the 2020 lockdown period could safeguard Hindu Kush Himalayan glaciers, which are otherwise under the threat of disappearing by the end of the 21st century. Since 2000, Himalayan glaciers have been losing nearly half a metre of ice per year,” it adds.