New Delhi: The Himalayan peaks of India are getting bigger and bigger each year, with glaciers, rivers and other tributaries getting larger and faster as the seasons change.
The Himalayan mountain snow of 2015 was the largest on record and in 2016, a glacier on the northern end of the Himalayas was more than two kilometres wide, according to scientists from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) here.
The annual snowfall on the eastern flank of the mountain ranges, which cover the southern part of the country, has increased to a record 1.2 million cubic metres (4.2 billion cubic feet), according to the Indian Meteorological Department.
The largest glacier in the world is located in the Himalayan range, said Pradeep Singh, a glaciologist at the Indian Academy of Sciences, which runs the Indian Ice Centre.
He estimated the glacier on this flank is about the size of a city block.
In January 2016, the glacier, which was 3,000 metres wide at its lowest point, had risen nearly 10 metres to 2.5 kilometres wide.
The glacier’s height is now about 3.3 kilometres.
The glacier on that flank is the largest in the entire Himalayan region, Singh said.
On the eastern side of the glacier is a massive glacier called the Mokhandwala Glacier, which is about 300 kilometres long.
Its ice thickness is about 20 metres.
The western side of Mokhhandwal, the largest glacier on India’s eastern flank, has also increased in size.
This glacier is 1,200 metres long and covers about 25 kilometres.
The ice thickness on this glacier is about 50 metres.
On July 17, 2015, the Mollis glacier in Ladakh, the highest mountain in India, reached its highest point and was the biggest glacier on earth.
The Mollises ice thickness was more like 10 metres.
It is one of the most important glaciers in the Indian region and the biggest on Earth, according the Indian Antarctic Survey.
It forms an ice shelf that has formed in the ocean off the coast of Antarctica, but this shelf does not cover the whole length of the Earth.
This is where the Himalaya is located.
On June 12, 2016, Mokha Icefall on a glacier in Nepal, about 50 kilometres away from where the Moller Glacier is, reached a maximum height of 5.4 metres.
The thickness of the ice is about 2.3 metres.
