Dagu, a glacier in its death throes

Located at the beginning of the Tibet Plateau in north-western Sichuan, the Dagu Glacier was one of China’s youngest glaciers. And we can almost speak of it in the past tense, as this glacial teenager is dying out as a result of global warming.

Very famous in China thanks to the highest cable car in the world which allows to reach in a few minutes its base at 4860 meters, this glacier, or rather these glaciers because there are 3 of them, are now only the shadow of themselves.

Until a few years ago, the summit was covered with eternal snow in all seasons, and the lake at its feet, the now well-named Lake of Tears, was frozen. But from now on, the summer lets discover an arid landscape of stones. As for the remaining ice, it is of a grayish tint and even black in places.

In 1971, when the glaciers were first recorded, the Dagu system had 17 of them on an area of 5.6km2. In 2007, 4 glaciers had disappeared and their area had been divided by 2.

In 2008, when the cable car was inaugurated, there were only 11 left and today only 3.

In 2020, scientists tried to save them by covering them with huge tarpaulins of thermal fabric lined with a reflective material in order to slow down the melting of the ice. 

The melting of glaciers on the Tibetan plateau, also called the 3rd pole, is a crucial problem for several billion human beings. This is where the Yantse, the Yellow River, the Mekong and the Indus rivers originate. The impact of global warming is more severe here than anywhere else on the planet and scientists predict that the temperature could rise by 4 degrees in the 21st century.