Gangotri glacier
| Gangotri glacier | ||
|---|---|---|
 Gaumukh Glacier Gate |
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| location | Uttarakhand ( India ) | |
| Mountains | Gangotri Group ( Garhwal Himalaya ) | |
| Type | Valley glacier | |
| length | 30 km | |
| surface | 144 km² | |
| Altitude range | 7000 m - 4000 m | |
| width | Max. 4 km | |
| Ice volume | 27 km³ | |
| Coordinates | 30 ° 50 ′ N , 79 ° 7 ′ E | |
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| drainage | Bhagirathi → Ganges | |
 Retreat of the Gangotri glacier |
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The Gangotrigletscher is a glacier in the Indian state of Uttarakhand , which with an estimated volume of over 27 km³ is one of the largest glaciers in the Himalayas . It is about 30 km long and between 2 and 4 km wide, its area was about 144 km² in 2010.
The catchment area of the glacier is framed by mountains of the Gangotri group : the Chaukhamba (7138 m), Satopanth (7076 m), Kedarnath (6940 m), Bhagirathi (6856 m), Janhukut (6805 m), Meru (6672 m), Kharchakund (6612 m) and Shivling (6543 m). The main river is fed by a number of tributary glaciers , the most important of which are the Kirti Bamak , Ghanohim Bamak , Swachhand Bamak and Maiandi Bamak , plus the lower-lying Raktavarn , Chaturangi and Meru glaciers , which are no longer connected to the main glacier. The accumulation mainly takes place in the winter months from December to March, the contribution of snowfall during the summer monsoon is uncertain .
The Bhagirathi , one of the source rivers of the Ganges, rises from the Gangotri Glacier . The glacier gate is called Gaumukh (roughly: "mouth of the cow") by Hindus because of its former appearance . As the main source of the Ganges, the glacier has great religious significance in Hinduism and attracts thousands of pilgrims every year. About 18 km or a day's walk away is Gangotri with the Ganga Temple, which is dedicated to the goddess Ganga and is part of the Chota Char Dham pilgrimage route.
Although large parts of the glacier are covered in the ablation zone with debris - resulting in a delayed response to climate change - is a significant decrease of the glacier recorded (→ retreat of glaciers since 1850 ). Due to debris cover and errors in the map material, information about the retreat of the glacier varies greatly. Evaluations of satellite images by the United States Geological Survey showed a loss of more than 850 m in length for the period between the early 1980s and the mid-2000s. An analysis of satellite data from 2016 showed a lower retreat rate of just under 18 m per year between 1965 and 2015, corresponding to a loss in length of a little less than 900 m. Main and minor glaciers lost a little more than 10 cm in thickness per year from 1968 to 2014. While the decrease in glacier length in the years before 2015 was less than the long-term average, the loss of mass was higher.
Web links
- Gangotri Glacier
- Save Gangotri , ecological damage and environmental protection efforts in the region
- Geomorphological evidences of retreat of the Gangotri glacier and its characteristics , study by HNB Garhwal University (PDF file; 812 kB)
- himalaya-info.org
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gyan Marwah (2004): Ganges - A river of no return , online
- ↑ a b c d e Atanu Bhattacharya, Tobias Bolch, Kriti Mukherjee, Tino Pieczonka, Jan Kropácek, Manfred F. Buchroithner: Overall recession and mass budget of Gangotri Glacier, Garhwal Himalayas, from 1965 to 2015 using remote sensing data . In: Journal of Glaciology . 2016, doi : 10.1017 / jog.2016.96 .
- ↑ Earth Obersvatory: Retreat of the Gangotri Glacier , online ( Memento from September 24, 2008 in the Internet Archive )