In China a Sacred Glacier Recedes

By Megan Fetzer Sheehan

Climate change is causing glaciers in China’s northwest Yunnan Province — including a glacier on one of Tibetan Buddhism’s eight sacred mountains — to recede at a historic pace, according to findings by Nature Conservancy scientists.

Northwest Yunnan— which has one of the most diverse temperate ecosystems on Earth — is threatened by rising temperatures that are double the average global trend, according to Barry Baker, a climate-change modeler for the Conservancy. One of the biggest indicators of this warming trend in northwest Yunnan has been the receding glaciers of the Tibetan Plateau — including the Mingyong Glacier, considered sacred by Tibetan Buddhists.

Baker and fellow Conservancy scientists have been studying the effects of climate change in northwest Yunnan Province for the last 5 years. He talked with Nature.org about the trends he and his partners have discovered, the natural impacts of glacial recessions on local communities, and what can be done to adapt to the impacts of climate change.

Read the interview on nature.org.

(Image: Prayer flags at Mingyong Glacier, Yunnan Province, China. By Scott Warren/The Nature Conservancy)