9 Dec 2015

Mount Everest glaciers melting - study

8:30 am on 9 December 2015

Glaciers on Mount Everest have shrunk 28 per cent over about 40 years, Chinese state media reports.

Measurements taken in the 1970s were compared to long-term remote sensing and on-site monitoring, the Xinhua news agency reported.

Known in China as Mount Qomolangma, the world's tallest mountain is located on the border of China and Nepal.

Remote-sensing data revealed that glacial lakes in the 2030-square-kilometre Mount Qomolangma national nature reserve had increased from about 100 square kilometres in 1990 to 114 in 2013, according to Kang Shichang, a researcher at the academy's State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Sciences.

The reserve has 1476 glaciers, Xinhua said.

- AFP