It is the rainy season in North India and the steep streets of Dharamshala become dangerous boulevards that discharge water incessantly day in and day out. Dangerous, at least, for tourists, because the locals -among which Buddhist practitioners are a clear majority- walk impassively between its narrow corridors -many of them barefoot- totally oblivious to the virulence of the weather.
In the suburb of McLeod Ganj is the Central Tibetan Administration, also known as the Tibetan Government in Exile. Right in front of the ministries of finance and education, acting as a climate refuge for visitors to the city, is the Tibetan Museum. Its main objective, for 24 years now, is to publicize the history and culture of the place, as well as expose the current social situation and environmental crisis. "Tibet is melting, and its impact on the Western climate is much greater than what is said," says one of the museum workers, an exile, who did not want to give her name.
Known as the world's third pole, Tibet's glaciers provide water for more than 1.5 billion people. In the last 30 years, according to sources from the Tibet Policy Institute (TPI) itself, the ice giants have been reduced by more than 15%. It is estimated that there are currently about 46,000, but in just 25 years it is possible that this number will be reduced to a whopping less than 12,000. And its affectation goes far beyond drying up the internal aquifers, melting the permanent ice sheets (also known as permafrost) that used to abound in the region and posing a serious danger to the survival of native species and the numerous nomadic herders. It affects the climate globally, and in Europe we are suffering from it more than anywhere else.
“Although there are multiple possible factors that have caused this, the snow cover on the Tibetan Plateau is a key factor that is significantly related to the heat wave in Europe. Its smaller size contributed to causing high pressure over southern Europe and northeast Asia, reducing cloud formation and raising temperatures," Dechen Palmo, a researcher at the TPI's environment and development department, explains to La Vanguardia. "According to a recent Chinese scientific report, 81 percent of the permafrost - permanent ice sheet - on the Tibetan Plateau could disappear around the year 2100 due to climate warming."
Despite the fact that scientific research on the relationship between snowmelt in this region of the Himalayas and its impact on the global climate is scarce, there is some evidence that supports the theory. “One of the possibilities that are on the table is that if the ice in the Arctic and the snow in Tibet are reduced, the jet streams are clearly affected. This alteration, therefore, increases the probability that, especially in Europe, situations of atmospheric blockage will be created in the face of other flows of cold air," says Sara Pizzicato, spokesperson for Greenpeace in Spain.
“It is clear that the decrease in Earth's albedo contributes to less radiation being reflected. Consequently, the intensity and duration of heat waves increases”, explains Mari Carmen Llassat, professor of Atmospheric Physics at the University of Barcelona. To be understood, the albedo represents the percentage of energy that any surface reflects with respect to the total radiation that falls on it. And the snow has the highest level of the entire earth's surface.
No one in the scientific community doubts that the loss of large masses of ice in Greenland has a clear effect on atmospheric circulation, which can produce very persistent anticyclonic situations. It is believed that this same effect could occur in Tibet. "When the ice melts due to global warming and this same phenomenon in turn contributes to the increase in temperature, what we call a feedback process occurs," Llassat explains to La Vanguardia. It is the fish that bites its tail: air pollution favors an increase in temperature and melting ice, and this in turn contributes to global warming because it does not reflect as much radiation as before.
This is also pointed out by a group of meteorology experts in an article published in the journal Nature, in which they relate the "fraction of the Eurasian snow cover" to the interdecadal increase in European heat waves. “The combined effects of decreased snow in Tibet and decreased ice in the Arctic, accompanied by drier soil and stronger heat flux, tend to weaken the poleward temperature gradient and affect the jet stream. mid-latitudes and transient eddy activities. This increases the likelihood of more persistent European lockdown events that favor frequent and strengthened heat waves." A clear example of this is the heat wave that we experienced in a large part of the continent last week, which in many places broke all records by lasting for almost a week with great intensity.
This increases the likelihood of more persistent European lockdown events that favor frequent and intensifying heat waves.” A clear example of this is the heat wave that we experienced in a large part of the continent last week, which in many places broke all records by lasting for almost a week with great intensity.
“We would need more time for science to make their models and see if there is a cascading effect from one place to another on the planet. Teleconnections are very difficult to prove”, says Fernando Valladares, a CSIC research professor and scientific disseminator. What is clear, says the expert, is that the extreme heat phenomena in the northern hemisphere "begin to synchronize." "Thus, Europe and America have begun to suffer crop failures at the same time due to extreme heat waves that occur at the same time in places separated by thousands of kilometers."
The 11,000 deaths in Spain and 61,000 in the whole of Europe due to the heat last summer may remain derisory figures if the least optimistic predictions come true. To this can be added other meteorological phenomena that until now occurred much less frequently, such as typhoons, tornadoes, and floods in places that had hardly experienced them in recent history, such as Tropical Storm Hilary in California.
“We cannot reverse the situation or stop global warming, but we can slow its pace by reducing human emissions and exploitation. Given its strategic importance, with the largest accessible freshwater reservoir on Earth and as the source of most of Asia's major rivers, Tibet is of increasing geopolitical importance. It is necessary to put it back in the center of the stage as an issue linked to Asian and global security”, says the Tibetan researcher Dechen Palmo.
"What we are seeing is the effect that burning fossil fuels has with Tibet, which is very far away, and that back has another effect in Europe." One of the possible solutions to this terrible phenomenon is, according to Pizzinato, the urgent abandonment of fossil fuels throughout the world. “There is no other possible option. Either we stop seeing climate change as a partisan fact and decarbonise the economy immediately or we will have to face situations never seen before”.
All this the worst moment in terms of emissions. According to the report prepared by scientists from the US agency NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), taking measurements at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, this year more polluting gases were emitted than ever, with the fourth highest annual increase occurring in 2023. large recorded for as long as data exists.
