Estimating the Loss of Himalayan Glaciers under Global Warming Using the 未18O鈥揝alinity Relation in the Bay of Bengal

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• 作者：Arvind Singh ; Anwar Mohiuddin ; R. Ramesh ; Sanjeev Raghav
• 刊名：Environmental Science & Technology Letters
• 出版年：2014
• 出版时间：May 13, 2014
• 年：2014
• 卷：1
• 期：5
• 页码：249-253
• 全文大小：255K
• 年卷期：v.1,no.5(May 13, 2014)

文摘

Quantifying the water loss of Himalayan glaciers due to global warming from direct measurement is difficult, as some glaciers are advancing or stable in spite of an overall retreat. We use a novel approach to provide an alternative estimate of the amount of Himalayan ice melt. Because a major part of this melted ice debouches into the Bay of Bengal through the Ganga鈥揃rahmaputra basin, it causes significant variations in the oxygen isotopic composition (未¹⁸O) and salinity (S) of the sea surface water and their mutual linear relationship. We document the temporal change in the 未¹⁸O鈥?i>S relation for the bay at three different times during the period from 1994 to 2006, and using a model, we infer that 2.4 脳 10¹¹ m³ water was lost by melting from the Ganga鈥揃rahmaputra basin during this period.