Initiated by the Third Pole Environment (TPE) Project, an 11-day field expedition to Yala Glacier (28.25°N, 85.62°E), Langtang region in Nepal was conducted during October 3-13, 2009. Yala Glacier is located on the southern slope of the Himalayas, with a wide coverage (2.5 km2) and gentle slope (22°southwestward). The highest and lowest altitude of Yala Glacier is 5749 and 5090 m a.s.l, respectively.

This is a joint effort between both Chinese and Nepalese scientists, led respectively by Prof. YAO Tandong of the ITP and Prof. Lochan P. Devkota of the Tribhuvan University, Nepal, to monitor the glacier dynamics and understand the local hydrology. Four Chinese scientists (i.e., Profs. YAO Tandong, MA Yaoming, TIAN Lide and Associate Prof. YU Wusheng) and five Nepalese scientists (i.e., Prof. Lochan P. Devkota, Associate Profs Deepak Aryal and Tek Bahadur Chetri, PhD candidate Dambaru B. Kattel and Lecturer Binod Dawadi) went on this expedition, targeting at .long-term mass balance monitoring of the Yala Glacier to reveal interactions between climate change and glacial variation in the region.

Group photo of expedition crews at the mountain foot in southern Himalaya (photo credit: Dambaru Kattel)

Nepal within the Third Pole region has recently documented significant glacial retreats and glacial lakes’ expansion, arousing social concern and threatening the national sustainability of Nepal. Due to lack of investigation, however, little is known about the mass balance budget of glaciers on the southern slope of the Himalaya, not to mention its long-term trend analysis. In the milieu of global climate change, a comparative study of glaciers’ responses to climate changes is also necessary and important between northern and southern slopes of the Himalaya. This joint expedition therefore not only lives out the Sino-Nepal MoU in TPE study, but also demonstrates the feasibility and promising future of multinational study of the TPE related issues.

Expedition crews hiking on the Yala Glacier (photo credit: Dambaru Kattel)