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.
Everest Climber BreashearsChronicles Melting of Himalayan Glaciers
More From E360
-
Cities
‘Sponge City’: How Copenhagen Is Adapting to a Wetter Future
-
INTERVIEW
On Controlling Fire, New Lessons from a Deep Indigenous Past
-
Solutions
Paying the People: Liberia’s Novel Plan to Save Its Forests
-
OPINION
Forest Service Plan Threatens the Heart of an Alaskan Wilderness
-
INTERVIEW
Pakistan’s Solar Revolution Is Bringing Power to the People
-
Food & Agriculture
In Uganda, Deadly Landslides Force an Agricultural Reckoning
-
Energy
Why U.S. Geothermal May Advance, Despite Political Headwinds
-
Food & Agriculture
In War Zones, a Race to Save Key Seeds Needed to Feed the World
-
Climate
Lightning Strikes the Arctic: What Will It Mean for the Far North?
-
RIVERS
A Win for Farmers and Tribes Brings New Hope to the Klamath
-
Solutions
Deconstructing Buildings: The Quest for New Life for Old Wood
-
NATURAL DEFENSES
How Restored Wetlands Can Protect Europe from Russian Invasion