Third Pole Glaciers Melting, Water Sources Threatened

The Third Pole, outside the Arctic and Antarctic, is the Earth's largest store of ice and snow. It is also called the 'Asian Water Tower'. This region extends to China, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Myanmar.

This region, containing about 7,000 cubic kilometers of ice, is spread across the Tibetan Plateau and surrounding mountain ranges, which is the source of water for major Asian rivers like the Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra, Mekong, Yangtze, and Yellow. It is now called the Pan-Third Pole, extending from the Tibetan Plateau, Pamir, Hindu Kush, Iranian Plateau, Caucasus, and Carpathian mountain ranges. According to scientific studies, these ice reserves are melting rapidly, endangering the water supply of 1.3 billion people in the lowlands.