The recently released Fourth Assessment Reports of the Inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) state that there is now a higher confidence in evidence to show that the Earth has warmed even more since 1,750 because of anthropogenic activities. The IPCC also mentions that over the next century, average surface temperatures are expected to rise between 1-6.3 C depending on various emission scenarios with impacts on health, agriculture, forests, water resources, coastal areas, species and natural areas.
Impacts on high mountain systems including glacial retreat are amongst the most directly visible signals of global warming. One of the most important and visible indicators of climate change is the recession of glaciers in many parts of the World. On a time scale recent glaciations occurred around 20,000 years ago as part of the earth?s paleoclimatic history. Although the recession of glaciers has been suggested by some scientists as a natural phenomena, in the later half of 20th century, an increase in the rate of retreat has been observed in most glaciers around the world including the Himalayas.
