Cartographer's Photographs From 1950s and 60s Help Track Himalayan Climate Change, Glacial Loss

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The Khumbu Valley in Nepal, with the track to Everest Base Camp running up the valley to the right.



The same view taken in 2007.

Fifty years ago, when Austrian climber and cartographer Erwin Schneider was exploring and mapping the Himalayas, he would have had little idea how his photographs would help to study the effect of climate change on this stunning region.

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Last year, mountain geographer Alton Byers, of the conservation group the Mountain Institute in Washington DC, photographed the same view. His images have captured the effect of climate change on the region, showing how glaciers that were nestled below the summit and below the ridge lines have shrunk over time.

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The photographs are part of an exhibition, being hosted this week at the World Water Week 2008 meeting in Stockholm, Sweden, which marks the 25th Anniversary of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, a regional knowledge and learning centre in Nepal.

Hundreds of such photographs from expeditions in the 1950s and 1960s are now being used by climatologists, along with measurements taken at the time and satellite images from the 1970s, to study the rate at which this 'third pole' is disappearing.

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http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080820/full/news.2008.1055.html