Climate Change in Himalaya

“To know your future you must know your past.” There is no better way to start the new semester with expanding the field of view on the Himalayas by looking at the paleoclimate and environment changes through time.  The Quaternary period where the transition from the Quaternary Ice Age, to Oldest Dryas, Older Dryas/Allerød and Younger Dryas and to current Holocene Interglacial, represents a distinctive period with typical climate events and environmental changes influencing earth ecosystems. The behaviours of glaciation and hydrology in Himalaya–Tibetan orogen at different regions have oscillated throughout the Quaternary  driven by different climatic forcing, in turn, could have had a major impact on global climate. It is of great importance for paleoecological research to understand the nature and dynamics of the Quaternary changes on this high land and adjacent regions. Many studies have applied the proxies records on Quaternary geological archives from  Himalaya–Tibet...

About 200 million years ago, when  Pangaea  began to break apart, India plate which had been separated by the vast ocean from Eurasia plate since 225 million years ago, started to forge northward into Asian continent, followed by the close of Mesozoic . When the two large landmasses collided about 50 million years ago during Cenozoic  driven by the plate-tectonic movement and rock density, the pressure of impingement forced the plates skyward, and marked the beginning of the uplifts of immense Himalaya mountain range and peaks, including Mt. Everest, who had risen to more than 9km high in just 50 million years . The impinging of the two landmasses, India and Eurasia, has yet to end. Many import stories of Himalayan climate history as well as the Earth's current period related to the past, has yet to be told.  Credit: Zhu Jing (writer), on the way from Skadu  to  Baltoro Glacier, K2 Base Camp Trekking 2015         ...