The Earth Story

.

Original caption:

Zanskar Mountains of Ladakh Himalaya during summer.

Northwestern India.

Stunning timelapses of Ladakh - Timeless journey in 4k

I just watched the 4 clearly visible planets march across the sky with the moon in the center, so here’s a short guide to the night sky as the last 3 move across.

Drone views throughout the Himalayas near Ladakh, India

The Zanskar Range

The Ladakh valley was always one of the gateways to the passes crossing the Himalayas between the Indian Subcontinent and China, a kind of half way antechamber to the Roof of the World where traders would exchange goods before returning to their homes or rest and gather before and after the rigorous crossing of the high places. Separating Ladakh from the modern Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir is this particular chain, imaged here from an airplane with a beautiful glacial lake taking centre stage, turned green by fine rock flour ground out of the range by glaciers. These mountains average some 6,000 metres in altitude, leading up to the High Himalaya and the Tibetan Plateau and the Lahaul and Spiti valley in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh beyond.

The rocks here were laid down on the floor of the Tethys Ocean (see http://bit.ly/1oYxD67 and http://bit.ly/2yNcH7n) off the northern continental margin of India before it crashed into Eurasia, and form a strip called the Tethys Himalaya some 100km wide. These slightly metamorphosed sediments were highly folded and uplifted into nappes (see http://bit.ly/2zgW1b3 and http://bit.ly/1L72vp3) during the continental collision. They range from the Late Precambrian some 600 million years ago through to the Eocene (56-34 Million years ago) thus preserving quite a long and near complete record of the history of our planet and the evolution of complex life. At their borders they fade into highly metamorphosed rocks below or encounter a major fault separating two nappes, the Central Himalayan Detachment System.

The name is thought to have come from the Tibetan word for copper, which was mined in the area though the etymology is disputed. Life here is harsh, and such agriculture as there is takes place at lower elevations or involving yak or sheep herding. The climate is semi desertic, lying behind the first range of high mountains and hence in their rain shadow (see http://bit.ly/2j9jtOQ), and the wildlife is a typical mix of mountain species such as marmot, bear, wolf, snow leopard and a variety of mountain goats and ibex.

Irrigation depends on the release of melting snow and glacial ice in the spring and summer, while most of its water falls in winter. People have been scratching a living out of this harsh land since the bronze age, and until recently the area was mostly self sufficient with some minor trade providing the few essentials and luxury goods needed (such as salt and tea).

Loz

Image credit: Partha Pratim Saha/2017 Royal Society of Biology Photographer of the Year_ _

Artificial glaciers

Even without the rising anthropogenic contribution to the problem of climate change, water resources all over the world are under stress and oversubscribed to meet human and ecological needs. This poses an increasing threat to the agriculture on which we depend for food, which is in many places currently fed using non renewable aquifers. Agricultural cycles are built around the predictability of weather, with plants being sowed at such a time that their most water hungry growth phases take place when there is plenty of rainfall. Global warming is exacerbating a growing problem of erratic and unpredictable rainfall patterns over the year, making agriculture more difficult.

A growing movement worldwide is focussing on methods to retain or make use of the water resources that already exist. The focus of many of these projects is small scale local water storage, so as to ensure a steady supply as needed throughout the growing season. Since rainfall patterns are becoming less steady, with droughts and downpours alternating in many regions of the globe, storing water from times of plenty to tide farmers over in periods of dearth is a sensible first step No solution is universal, since different microclimates and crops have variable patterns and needs. Farmers and villages are building ponds and retaining dams, while an Indian civil engineer has devised a locally adapted method involving artificial glaciers.

Ladakh was once called the gateway to Tibet, a valley on the Indian side of Himalaya, and the traditional staging post for the trade caravans that plied over the high passes between Srinagar in Kashmir and the snowy plateau high above. It is a desertic place, caught behind the rain shadow of the first ranges of mountains, whose water mainly comes from spring snowmelt followed by sowing, with futher plant growth being fed fed by slower release glacier melt during the summer.

As weather patterns change however, life is getting harder. Snowfalls have diminished over the past decades and the glaciers are in full retreat, meaning that less water is available than previously. The glacier melt is coming through later in the year than before, and the spring melt is smaller and less consistent. Compounding the problem is the fact that streams are now dry in the crucial spring sowing time, when healthy water supply to fields is absolutely vital. Since the valley is at 4,500 metres, the growing season between first melting and the next autumn's frost (that kills the crops if they're not ready for harvest) is short, and any delay in sowing makes a big difference to the size and quality of the crop.

Importing food from India is possible, but with several 5000+ metre passes to cross, it remains both expensive and difficult, and becomes totally impossible during the monsoon season when the passes are often shut after the roads get washed down the mountains by landslides. The cost in diesel is huge, and the pollution and soot the trucks give off ends up on the glaciers, where its dark colour changes the albedo (reflectivity of sunlight) and encourages a further acceleration in melting, leading to even less water resources in future.

Enter Chewang Norphel, nicknamed the iceman, an engineer with the rural development ministry of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Fifteen years ago he noticed that a growing number of villages were experiencing water shortages. Since 1997 he has been working to ensure consistent water supplies during the crucial spring period, by creating small artificial glaciers behind a series of retaining walls. The late summer meltwater is retained and freezes during the winter, melts again in March, and tides the crops through until the glacial water filters down in June. Combined with reservoirs to store monsoon rain and an equitable distribution system, the food security of the valley is ensured, for now.

Twelve glaciers have been made so far, by diverting river water in late summer into the retaining dams, slowing the water down through meandering channels so that more of it freezes. Layers of water are successively frozen on to the growing glacier until they are suitably thick. These are at a lower altitude than real glaciers, and so melt earlier in the spring.

Our world needs many more such innovative and locally adapted solutions to confront the growing challenges of the 21st century. The uncoupling of precipitation cycles from traditional agricultural ones is a challenge every ecosystem will have to face, and our practises and working methods are going to have to evolve to respond to a rapidly changing situation. Whether this solution will prove effective as global warming increases and the glaciers that remain the ultimate source of much of the water melt remains to be seen.

Loz

Image credit: Nick Pattinson

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/02/120214-artificial-glaciers-water-crops-in-indian-highlands/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=artificial-glaciers-to-survive-global-warming http://www.scientificamerican.com/slideshow.cfm?id=artificial-glaciers-to-survive-global-warming http://www.rainwaterharvesting.org/Rural/Improvised.htm Original paper, free access: http://www.indefenceofliberty.org/admin/attachment/paperC.Norphel_9apr.pdf

Did not expect where this video went.

Bus driving up a narrow road along the edge of the Kangra Valley, western Himalayays

Original caption: