Cameras to monitor melting Everest

Five special time-lapse cameras have been installed for the first time in the Mount Everest region to monitor the melting of the glaciers. The cameras were installed last week by the technical team of an organization -Extreme Ice Survey - a world-renowned American organization.

Confirming the installation of cameras, an EIS source said, “Our technicians have just returned to USA after the successful installation of five cameras to monitor the melting of the glaciers.”According to EIS, four cameras will monitor the Khumbu Glacier (right) and one Nare Glacier on the south side of Ama Dablam.

EIS is the most wide-ranging glacier study ever conducted using ground-based, real-time photography that uses time-lapse photography, conventional photography and video to document the rapid changes occurring on the earth’s glacial ice. EIS has already installed 27 time-lapse cameras at 15 sites in Greenland, Iceland, Alaska, and the Rocky Mountains.

Cameras in the Everest region were installed to provide ground information on the melting of the Himalayas that had become a controversial issue after an error in the key document of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - a scientific body to look into climate change issues. IPCC recently admitted data mistake in its report published in 2007 about the disappearance of all the glaciers in the Himalayas by 2035.

Issuing a statement, the head of the IPCC Rajendra Pachauri had admitted that the date was a mistake but had claimed that ice is melting at a rate faster than ever in the Himalayas and pointed out the need of rigorous studies.

According to mountaineer Dawa Stevan Sherpa, who was involved in the installation, the team will monitor the images that will be automatically captured every 30 minutes for two years. “There has been a dispute on the melting of the glaciers. Continuous monitoring of the images for two years will yield the most comprehensive evidence to settle the dispute,” said Prashant Singh, World Wildlife Fund-Nepal’s Climate Change Campaign chief.

The cameras powered by the solar panels and batteries were mounted on vertical rock faces. The captured photos are automatically stored in the cameras and the technicians will check the cameras and download them for analysis every six months.

“The compiled and analyzed imagery will be disseminated across the world to silence the climate change skeptics,” said Dawa Stevan.

Source:
The Himalayan Times, "Cameras to monitor melting Everest", accessed June 1, 2010