Zemu Glacier is the largest glacier in the Eastern

Himalaya The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 10 ...

. It is about in length and is located at the base of

Kangchenjunga Kangchenjunga, also spelled Kanchenjunga, Kanchanjanghā (), and Khangchendzonga, is the third highest mountain in the world. Its summit lies at in a section of the Himalayas, the ''Kangchenjunga Himal'', which is bounded in the west by the ...

in the

n region of

Sikkim Sikkim (; ) is a state in Northeastern India. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China in the north and northeast, Bhutan in the east, Province No. 1 of Nepal in the west and West Bengal in the south. Sikkim is also close to the Sil ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

. The Zemu Glacier drains the east side of Kanchenjunga, the world's third highest mountain. The glacier is the source of water for numerous rivers, as it feeds them when it melts. One of them is the

Teesta River Teesta River is a long river that rises in the Pauhunri Mountain of eastern Himalayas, flows through the Indian states of Sikkim and West Bengal through Rangpur, and enters the Bay of Bengal. It drains an area of . In India, it flows throug ...

, which has garnered large attention in the past few years because of a proposed 3500 MW hydropower plant. At the moment the

Government of Sikkim The Government of Sikkim also known as the State Government of Sikkim is the subnational government of the Indian state of Sikkim and its 6 districts, created by the National Constitution as the legislative, executive and judicial authority t ...

has only been able to run a 510 MW plant on the river. Owing to the location of the river in an earthquake prone area, the hydropower plants will be a run of the river project. Zemu Glacier remains a less studied and monitored glacier. Studying digital imagery shows that the glacier has receded 27 meters every year between 1967–1984. The retreat is not massive given the great length of the glacier. There is a thick layer of debris on the glacier, preventing ablation: there are, however, small lakes that have formed on the surface of these debris-covered sections of the glacier.

Changes and Threats

Zemu Glacier has seen significant retreat in recent years. The lateral moraine ridges on either side of the glacier are on average 150 feet high. These ridges were created during the

Little Ice Age The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of regional cooling, particularly pronounced in the North Atlantic region. It was not a true ice age of global extent. The term was introduced into scientific literature by François E. Matthes in 1939. Ma ...

advance. Lateral moraines never get higher than glacier surfaces that create them. This means that the underside of the glacier has thinned by 150 feet in the last century. Another problem on the glacier is the disappearance of its tributaries. Many of its tributaries no longer meet it. This deprives the glacier of a significant portion of its former ice sources. The head of the glacier is fed by debris from the Kanchenjunga slopes. The lower 18 km of the glacier is an ablation zone where melting is immense. Recent studies have shown that between 2000 and 2013 the surrounding glaciers of the Zemu have shrunk drastically, reducing the source for the main glacier and increasing the risk of its shrinkage.

References

External links

Map from 1931 German expedition
Glaciers of Sikkim Glaciers of the Himalayas {{India-glacier-stub

Changes and Threats

See also

References

External links