Several glaciers near Mount Everest have experienced unusual melting this winter.
Each January, the Himalayas are typically blanketed with fresh snow. But unusual winter melting in recent months has left several glaciers and mountains without a new coating. Many glaciers are bare even at their crest.
The false-color images on this page show a few glaciers in the Himalayas. The images above show the high glacier passes of Nanpa La and Nup La, located around 30 miles (50 kilometers) northwest of Mount Everest, during fall on October 13, 2020 (left) and in winter on January 17, 2021 (right). The images below show Rolwaling Glacier, located 20 kilometers (30 miles) south of Nanpa La. All images were acquired by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 using bands 7-5-4.
In these images, short wavelength infrared (SWIR) bands are combined with natural color to better differentiate areas of water that are snow (brightest blue), ice (darker blue) and meltwater (darkest blue). Rocks are brown; vegetation is green. Note black areas are shadows.
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Image via NASA Earth Observatory
