Dagu glacier has already misplaced greater than 70% of its ice over the previous half century.

The air was skinny as a bunch of scientists trudged by snow close to the height of the Dagu Glacier in southwestern China on a dark June morning. It was quiet up there, 3 miles above sea degree, aside from the sound of working water – a relentless reminder of the ice melting proper beneath their toes.

As they trekked upwards, oxygen canisters tucked into their fleece jackets, porters walked alongside carrying thick rolls of white material. The researchers deliberate to unfold these sheets throughout greater than 4,300 sq. toes (400 sq. meters) of the mountain. The movie was designed to replicate the solar’s rays again into the environment, successfully shielding the glacier from the warmth and hopefully preserving a few of its ice.

For a long time, Dagu has supported the lives of tens of 1000’s of people that dwell round it. The glacier’s meltwater offers ingesting water and helps to generate hydropower, whereas the majestic views of the Tibetan Plateau can appeal to greater than 200,000 vacationers a yr, fueling an business that retains over 2,000 individuals employed. Now all that’s beneath risk because the planet warms.

The Chinese scientists had been beneath no phantasm that their challenge would save Dagu. The glacier has already misplaced greater than 70% of its ice over the previous half century. One researcher described such efforts to an area newspaper as akin to a health care provider merely attempting to increase the lifetime of a terminally ailing affected person by a couple of years. The solely actual remedy can be to drastically reduce emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide, of which China is the world’s largest supply.

“All the human intervention methods that we’re working on, even if they prove effective, are only going to slow down” the melting, stated Zhu Bin, the 32-year-old Nanjing University affiliate professor main the expedition. “If the Earth keeps getting warmer, in the end there is no way to protect the glaciers forever.”

This was not the type of area work that Zhu had got down to do.

A cloth scientist by coaching, he spent most of his time in laboratories in Nanjing and New York, together with greater than a yr researching battery storage at Columbia University. The change to glaciers puzzled a few of his tutorial colleagues, who teased him about leaving the consolation of doing analysis in an air-conditioned room. His household fearful about his security, however, he says, in the end got here round as a result of they noticed preserving glaciers as “something that’s difficult but right.”

Covering glaciers with sheets of reflective materials is not a brand new thought. European ski resorts have been utilizing white blankets to guard their snow for practically 20 years. But China has solely simply begun experimenting with the strategy. Small trials carried out on a glacier in Xinjiang and Dagu starting in 2020 seem to have slowed their retreat.

This time, Zhu’s workforce was testing out a brand new materials that their analysis suggests has the potential to replicate greater than 93% of daylight and assist Dagu actively lose warmth. The movie is made out of cellulose acetate, a pure fiber comprised of crops, so as to reduce its environmental impression. The substance can be used as small particles deposited by drones on much less accessible glaciers.

The first day of the expedition did not go nicely. The aim was to safe the white sheets to the glacier utilizing steam drills, wood frames and nail weapons, however the crew suffered from complications and dizziness within the excessive altitude. As they moved deeper into the glacier, the waist-high snow received so thick that it was too harmful to proceed. They determined to show again when the climate forecast confirmed a rainstorm arriving within the subsequent hour.

Previous research have proven that masking elements of glaciers with particular supplies can cut back the melting of snow and ice by between 50% and 70% in contrast with unprotected surfaces. But chemical compounds or plastic particles from the sheets might negatively impression native ecosystems and downstream water high quality, in response to Matthias Huss, a professor of glaciology at ETH Zurich. Covering massive glacial areas can also have large and surprising penalties.

“It’s a very good solution to locally combat the effect of climate change,” stated Huss, particularly when there are particular financial advantages. However, the actual reply is “very clear,” he stated: “It’s to save the climate.”

The sheets that Zhu and his workforce hauled up Dagu would not be efficient on bigger glaciers anyway, as a result of they’re consistently shifting, in response to Johannes Oerlemans, a climatologist at Utrecht University. “For small glaciers that are kind of dying and don’t move, you can cover them easily,” he stated. “But as soon as the glacier moves, the cover is destroyed.”

Not solely is the infrastructure wanted to position the sheets on a big glacier impractical, filth would possible accumulate over time, darkening the floor and decreasing their skill to replicate daylight, says Oerlemans. He as an alternative advocates for depositing synthetic snow. A challenge that Oerlemans labored on sought to unfold snow comprised of meltwater – with out the usage of electrical energy – on a glacier in Switzerland.

On the fourth day of the Dagu expedition, Zhu’s workforce lastly managed to put down the sun-reflecting sheets after the climate improved. They’ll return in September to take away the shields and take measurements to judge how nicely they labored. The researchers additionally collected water samples to look at the environmental impression. The experiment is ready to proceed for 3 to 5 years, after which the scientists will determine whether or not to strive utilizing their supplies on different glaciers in China, and even take them overseas.

The challenge is supported by the native tourism bureau and tech large Tencent Holdings Ltd., which supplied funds by a sustainability initiative. While there’s financial incentive for saving Dagu, everybody concerned repeats the identical message: a very powerful factor is to chop carbon emissions which are inflicting it to soften within the first place.

It took tens of hundreds of thousands of years for the Tibetan Plateau to rise to its peak in the present day. The India and Asia tectonic plates collided, making the highest chilly sufficient to host the glaciers and snow that feed practically all the most important rivers within the area, together with the Ganges, Mekong, and Yangtze. Together they’re lifelines for billions of individuals throughout Asia. In comparability, the reverse is going on at warp velocity – the plateau has misplaced over 15 % of its glaciers in simply 50 years.

The overwhelming majority of glaciers world wide are retreating quickly, resulting in rising sea ranges and lethal floods. Covering elements of them with sunlight-reflecting blankets is like inserting a band-aid on a gushing wound. Even if the world manages to maintain international warming under 2C in comparison with pre-industrial occasions – the goal most nations dedicated to once they signed the Paris Agreement in 2015 – lower than half of the roughly 4,000 glaciers within the Alps in the present day will stay by the top of the century.

Huang Shihai, deputy head of the Dagu Glacier Management Bureau, has seen firsthand what local weather change has delivered to Heishui County, which sits on the backside of the glacier. Since shifting there in 2006, he is watched as summers arrived earlier, winters received hotter, rivers grew dirtier and excessive climate occasions occurred extra often.

Living close to the icy mountain, Huang by no means had a lot use for short-sleeved shirts. Now he begins carrying them as early within the yr as May. He worries consistently that Dagu may disappear perpetually, and concerning the impression that can have on the individuals who depend on it. “There is a sense of crisis,” he stated.