DEHRADUN: A group of scientists recently discovered a new glacier in Uttarakhand that was found to be rapidly expanding in size.
The glacier is located in the Niti Valley, a remote area in the northernmost region of the hilly state, close to the India-Tibet border.
Stretching about 10 km in length, the new glacier that is yet to be named lies adjacent to the Randolph and Rekana glaciers and spans approximately 48 sq km.
The curious discovery was made by glaciologists Manish Mehta, Vineet Kumar, Ajay Rana, and Gautam Rawat of Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Dehradun.
Their study, Manifestations of a Glacier Surge in Central Himalaya Using Multi-Temporal Satellite Data, was done using satellite data. Their findings show the glacier is currently ‘surging’.
“A glacier surge refers to the sudden and rapid increase in the size of a glacier,” Mehta, a senior geologist at the Wadia Institute, said.
One reason for this curious phenomenon, Mehta said, could be hydrological imbalance, which occurs when the porosity of water causes the ice layers to weaken and lose stability.
This, in turn, leads to the ice sliding downwards.