EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Wide Valley.  No Ice.

Glacial-carved Valley
Gyantse County, Tibet

Explanation:  A little while ago, we visited a valley in the very high plateau of Tibet showing some startling glacial recession.  On the same visit, further along that route in Gyantse County, we now encounter another glacier-free landscape.  This one has some further landscape stories to tell.

First, this is a classic glacier-carved valley.  Notice the U-shape of the slopes, typical of being carved by rivers of ice.

But look closer.  

The valley floor is corrugated and rippled with exposed material deposited by the now-extinct glacier. 

This angle provides a better view further up the valley.
Little remains of the once-dominant glacier, save for
snow cover and perhaps some ice fields on the northern slopes
and toward the high peak.

Further, evident on the slopes are slips and slides of surface material, forming a pattern of solifluction:

Notice the dark scars marring the lighter-brown thin soil surface here.
This is the pattern of solifluction.

Solifluction occurs when the frozen soil -- typically occurring as permafrost below the surface -- thaws, allowing gravity, along with rainfall, to wash away the soil surface forming pits and scars across the valley.

This is found elsewhere on the globe, but more commonly in the arctic and subarctic regions where perennial permafrost is being transformed to seasonal freezing or being fully thawed.  

Arctic?  Subarctic?  But here, we are at about 29 degrees north latitude, not far from the subtropics!

Something is radically, drastically, changing and warming on this Earth.

Guess what.