Everest Climber BreashearsChronicles Melting of Himalayan Glaciers

Mountaineer and filmmaker David Breashears, who has climbed Mt. Everest five times, has recently been documenting the rapid disappearance of glaciers in the Himalayas. In an interview with the Web site SolveClimate.com, Breashears illustrates the swift retreat of the Rongbuk glacier near Everest by comparing photographs from the 1920s with pictures he took last November. As Breashears demonstrates, the Rongbuk has melted so severely that many sections of it are now 400 feet lower than eight decades ago and large swaths of it have disappeared. Speaking at an Asia Society conference last week on the melting glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau, Breashears called Everest “the highest part of the highest water tower in the world” and says that the glaciers’ disappearance threatens water supplies in many parts of Asia.