Hindu Kush, Karakorum, Himalaya and Tibetan Plateau Glaciers: Tipping Point - Impact of Global Changes on Mountains: Responses and Adaptation - page 312

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Hindu Kush, Karakorum,
Himalaya and Tibetan Plateau
Glaciers: Tipping Point
Iqbal Syed Hasnain
INTRODUCTION
The Hindu Kush, Karakorum, Himalaya and Tibetan Plateau mountain
systems hold the largest ice mass outside the Polar Regions (Xu et al. 2009).
The region is important as a source of freshwater to more than 1.5 billion
people of two major emerging economies: India and China. Together,
they contribute to large amounts of black carbon aerosols, released from
incomplete combustion, and in process modifying the hydrology and
radiative forcing over the entire region. The greenhouse gases and black
carbon aerosols driven warming is visible on shrinking glaciers, shifting
monsoons, declining crop yields, and unprecedented increase in the
degradation of the mountain ecosystem.
Fifty fi ve thousand glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau and surrounding
the Hindu Kush, Karakorum and Himalaya mountains, in the tropical/sub-
tropical region exert a direct infl uence on social and economic development
in the surrounding regions such as China, India, Nepal, Tajikistan,
Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar. It is subjected
to infl uences by multiple climatic systems, complicated geomorphologies
and various internal and external geological impacts. The area demonstrates