“The State of the Himalayan Glaciers” is the title of the article that has just been published on the first edition of Geologicamente, the new magazine of the Italian Geographical Society reporting some scientific results of the expedition “On the Trail of the Glaciers – Himalaya 2018”.

Written by Andrea Bollati, Fabiano Ventura, Claudio Smiraglia, Guglielmina Diolaiuti, Davide Fugazza and Roberto Sergio Azzoni and with the photographic comparisons made by Fabiano Ventura, the article takes stock of the state of the Himalayan glaciers highlighting an indisputable phase of retreat of the glaciers in the areas taken into consideration (central Himalaya glacial areas in Nepal (Kangchenjunga area) and the Everest and Cho Oyu area in China).
“In each of the examined glacial area  – as said in the article – the increase in the number of supraglacial lakes is reflected in the formation of large lakes that have favoured intense feedback processes (with retreat acceleration), as well as the regression of still active fronts fed by the glacial flow.
The observations on the ground show, for the three glaciers, reduction in length, even kilometres, and in thickness (up to hundreds of metres) compared to the maximum of the Small Ice Age.
Considering a period of about thirty years (1989-1991; 2000; 2017), the analysis of satellite images shows a similar limited areal reduction for the three areas considered (between 3 and 4%) and a slight acceleration of the areal reduction between the two periods considered. The glacial retreat in these regions can be attributed to an increase in the annual average temperatures, a reduction in precipitation during the monsoon and a decrease in snowfall in the North-Western Himalayas.”

At this link you can download the pdf of the edition of Geologicamente