But unlike the lower glaciers, many of the high glaciers would still be too cold to lose mass even in the presence of atmospheric warming.

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To melt a glacier at an altitude above 6, 000 metres, where many of the Himalayan glaciers are found, requires a lot more warming than can be expected by 2035 a point made forcefully in a letter to Science by Dr Kaser and others, published this week.

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Global climate change is also expected to have major impacts on water supply in India, rapidly melting the Himalayan glaciers upon which many people depend and increasing rainfall variability across the subcontinent.

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Being so far north, much of region - some 146, 000 square km - is covered by glaciers and ice caps (a type of ice field where glaciers flow off in many directions).

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Alex Scott, SNH area officer for West Sutherland and Wester Ross (North), said the caves provided a unique record of Scotland's ancient history, as glaciers during the Ice Age erased many remains buried just below the surface of the ground.

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The findings re-affirm what many suspect - that the reduced elevation of these glaciers is not the result of changes in precipitation or melt, but the increased speed at which they now move.

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Asked about glacial melt, which many observers point to as evidence of global warming, Lindzen said the way glaciers change and move are phenomena largely unexplained.

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With mountain glaciers typically only tens of metres thick, this meant, said WGMS director Wilfried Haeberli, that many would disappear on a timescale of decades if the trend continued.

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