The big melt

Asia's glaciers are lifeline for 2 billion, but ice, snow diminishing

National Geographic

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC — The gods must be furious.

It's the only explanation that makes sense to Jia Son, a Tibetan farmer surveying the catastrophe unfolding above his village in China's mountainous Yunnan Province. "We've upset the natural order," the devout, 52-year-old Buddhist says. "And now the gods are punishing us."

This geologic colossus — the highest and largest plateau on the planet, ringed by its tallest mountains — covers an area greater than western Europe, at an average altitude of more than two miles.

But a crisis is brewing on the roof of the world, and it rests on a curious paradox: For all its seeming might and immutability, this geologic expanse is more vulnerable to climate change than almost anywhere else on Earth.

>  READ IT     >  SHARE IT     >  SUBMIT A NEWS LINK