Mountain Range. Anemaqen, Qinghai, China. 2014
Mountain Range. Anemaqen, Qinghai, China. 2014
The Tibetan plateau stretches north from the foot of the Himalaya Mountain Range. Even so, the plateau has an average elevation of more than 5,000 meters. Scientists call it “the third pole” because of its influence on the earth’s climate. This land mass, rising high into the earth’s atmosphere, governs the Asian weather system, with its lakes, glaciers, and wetlands acting as a huge water tower. Millions of people get their water from the great rivers—the Yellow, the Yangtze, and the Mekong—that are linked to the plateau. Over the past forty years, the plateau has been warming much faster than the rest of the world, at a rate of 0.5 degrees Fahrenheit per decade. The glaciers of the Himalayas are melting at an accelerating rate and the permafrost across the plateau continues to warm. These problems are not China’s alone, as internationally shared water basins intensify the already strained hydropolitics of the region.
Caption information
Mountain Range. Anemaqen, Qinghai, China. 2014
The Tibetan plateau stretches north from the foot of the Himalaya Mountain Range. Even so, the plateau has an average elevation of more than 5,000 meters. Scientists call it “the third pole” because of its influence on the earth’s climate. This land mass, rising high into the earth’s atmosphere, governs the Asian weather system, with its lakes, glaciers, and wetlands acting as a huge water tower. Millions of people get their water from the great rivers—the Yellow, the Yangtze, and the Mekong—that are linked to the plateau. Over the past forty years, the plateau has been warming much faster than the rest of the world, at a rate of 0.5 degrees Fahrenheit per decade. The glaciers of the Himalayas are melting at an accelerating rate and the permafrost across the plateau continues to warm. These problems are not China’s alone, as internationally shared water basins intensify the already strained hydropolitics of the region.