New Delhi. The national lockdown (Corona Lock Down), which was implemented in India from March 25, 2020 to May 31, 2020, prevented the melting of about 27 metric tons of snow in the Himalayas. This has been claimed in a new study. The study published in ‘Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences’ (PNAS) Nexus states that reduction in anthropogenic pollutant emissions during the 2020 Kovid-19 lockdown led to a reduction in snowmelt in the Himalayas.
Liqiang Zhang of Beijing Normal University, China, and colleagues set out to investigate how a sudden drop in pollutants in the region affected snowmelt. For this, several data obtained from satellites were used along with the atmosphere-chemistry-ice model.
The effect of radiation decreased, this saved the ice from melting
The researchers estimate that the reduction in anthropogenic pollutant emissions during the lockdown in India was responsible for a 71.6 percent reduction in the radiative effect on snow in April 2020 compared to the same period in 2019. According to the study, this reduction in the effect of radiation would have saved 27 metric tons of ice from melting.
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Tags: Corona Lock Down, Himalaya, India, New Study
FIRST PUBLISHED : June 28, 2023, 23:55 IST
