China drills Tibet glaciers to study climate change

Chinese scientists have drilled into a glacier in Qinghai-Tibet Plateau to collect nearly 400-metre ice samples for research into climate change.  
Under the project led by Yao Tandong, an academician with the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, it took the team 40 days to collect the ice samples from the top of the Dund Glacier.

The scientists took three ice samples with a total length of 396 metres drilling from an altitude of 5,320 metres above the sea level on top of the glacier, and another three samples of 45 metres-long in total from an altitude of 4,950 metres above the sea level, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.  

The samples have been sent to the institute’s lab in Lhasa, capital of Tibet Autonomous Region.  They also set up a meteorological station at the top of the glacier.

Only the polar regions have more glaciers than the plateau. Scientists believe glaciers can offer insight into climate changes.

Although they generally believe glaciers on the plateau are melting due to global warming, the glacier appears to have remained stable without any obvious retreating since the first scientific drill by a Sino-America team in 1987, the report said.