The Himalay an St ate of Uttarakhand is experiencing changes like steady recession of glaciers, shifting vegetation ine, increasing temperature and reduction in annual rainfall, to name a few, due to climate change. The Gangotri and other glaciers have continued to retreat at different r ate s wit h cl imate hange believed to be a major reason. These changes have been stated in the first interim report on climate change in Uttarakhand issued by the Uttarakhand Centre on Climate Change (UCCC), ttarakhand cience E d u c a t i o n a n d R e s e a r c h Centre, Uttarakhand State C o u n c i l f o r S c i e n c e a Technology (UCOST) and C e n t r e o f E x c e l l e n c e f o r N a t u r a l R e s o u r c e s D a t a Management System. According to the UCCC pr inc ipa l inve s t i g ator and Kuma on Un i v e r s i t y i c e - Chancellor VPS Arora, the database for climate change studies has been developed by d i f f e r e w o r k i n g g ro up s o f t h e c e n t r e t h r o u g h available data and studies. Though some keptics still maintain that global climatic changes are part of cyclic phenomena, climate change and anthropogenically accelerated change has left a definite signature on at least 25 aspects from glaciers, ater quality and crop yield to rainfall rhythm and the pest spectrum. In the interim report on climate hange in Uttarakhand, the part which details the signature of climate change has been compiled by the U VC V P S A r o r a , U C O S T D G Rajendra Dobhal; JS Rawat, Navneet Gahlot and Arbind Anand rom UCCC. On October 15 and 21, 1990 snow covered about 4,884 sq km area in Uttarakhand but on he same dates in 1999, the snow cover area had decreased by about 17 per cent to 4,145 sq km. This ecrease is transforming glacier-fed rivers like one of the major rivers Saryu, which has transformed ompletely into a non-glacier river. Studies in Uttarakhand show that the Himalayan glaciers in this State re retreating at different rates in different time periods depending on their geographic location. The Gangotri glacier system comprising 32 tributary glaciers has been receding too. While the master glacier s retreating at a rate of 19m/year (Naithani et al 2001), two of its tributary glaciers; Raktvarna and Thelu re retreating at double this rate whereas the disappearance of various small glaciers from the region has ot been documented. Similar trends have been observed in other glaciers including Pindari, Milam and Dokriani. Locals have also been observing the diminishing regulatory effect of glaciers as the discharge f nowfed rivers is decreasing even though glaciers are melting due to global warming. The report states hat this is happ ening due to s i gni f i c ant decrease in snow cover area in catchment areas of such ivers, disappearance of numerous sma l l g l a c i e r s , d e c re a s i n g l eng t h of t ime t h at now remains on the mountains and reduction in numerous t r i b u t a r y s t r e a m s f e d b y groundwater, which has been drastically reduced due to change in rainfall behaviour.
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