Page 194 - AWSAR 2.0

170 || AWSAR Awarded Popular Science Stories - 2019
Sciences. A deep dive into the internet about the subject and I emerged ecstatic after finding the subject of my dreams. I was to become an earth scientist, who studies the various fields of natural sciences related to
planet Earth. So, less than a
month after coming across the
term Earth Sciences, for the first
time, I became a student of the
earth. I started learning about
how the various components
of the earth interact and affect
each other resulting in the
dynamic earth we experience.
I learnt how the mountains
and oceans are formed and
how, with time, different forces
sculpt the surface forming the
see today. But the best part of being an earth scientist was the annual field trips. Travelling to the different parts of the country to see how the same forces sculpted vastly different scenarios and understanding the processes, made me stand in awe for the power of the earth. After my graduation, I went to complete my post-graduation from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. It was here that I realised I was a mountain boy, a creature of the cold. I was not meant to survive in the hot plains of India, I needed the snowy chill. But my time at Kharagpur cemented two of my lifelong beliefs, the first to become a scientist and the second to work for the mountains in the mountains. Two years passed in a flash, and I found myself staring ahead at a Ph.D.
Researching for a topic for my doctoral studies, I started looking for areas of studies which needed real and immediate attention in the Himalayas. During my research I came across the horrors of how climate change was destroying the Himalayas. Reports and studies from various governments and research institutes painted a dismal picture of the future of the Himalayas and its people. There
were the problems of melting glaciers and dwindling water supplies, at the same time, a new kind of threat was gripping the Himalayas, GLOFs, or Glacial Lake Outburst Floods. As
I started to go through reports and studies concerning how climate change had, in recent times, increased the risk of such events all over the Himalayas, one such report talked about the tragedy of Kedarnath, where Chorabari, a glacial lake, had breached its dam to produce the most catastrophic GLOF event of our times. What disturbed me the most was the fact that the scientists had
warned the government way back in 2004 about the possibilities of such events, which were obviously ignored. This meant that the tragedy could have been avoided; there were steps that could have been taken. This fact there was a science which could have avoided this disaster and still it destroyed so many lives changed something inside me, five years after that fateful day at Kedarnath, the disaster had changed one more life.
Now as a research scholar in the Department of Geology at the Sikkim University, I study the evolution of glacial lakes in the state to understand the risk these lakes posed in becoming a potential candidate for a GLOF event. These glacial lakes are formed as the receding glaciers leave behind a pile of unconsolidated rock debris called moraines, which the glacier had crushed and moved along as it carved its path through the mountains. These moraines form a weak damming structure holding the water from the melting glaciers and any precipitation. GLOF events, which are high-intensity glacial disaster wherein there is a sudden release of all or a part of the water retained in the glacial lakes, have increased in the Himalayan region
There were the problems of melting glaciers and dwindling water supplies, at the same time, a new kind of threat was gripping the Himalayas, GLOFs, or Glacial Lake Outburst Floods.
landforms we