The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD)-organised international conference on Himalayan glaciers concluded in the capital today.

The five-day gathering, ‘Cryosphere of the Hindu Kush Himalayas’, brought scholars and practitioners from across the globe together to discuss recent research on snow, glaciers, glacial hydrology, and capacity building in cryospheric research in the Himalayan region.

Himalayas are warming about three times faster than the global average temperature during the last 25 year period, says a new study.

The report made public on Wednesday states the average annual precipitation during the same period has increased by 6.52 millimetre per year in the region. Authored by Uttam Babu Shrestha, Shiva Gautam and Kamaljit Bawa, the study

was published in the recent issue of ‘PLoS One’ journal.

A new study has some reassuring news about how fast Greenland's glaciers are melting away.

Greenland's glaciers hold enough water to raise sea level by 20 feet, and they are melting as the planet warms, so there's a lot at stake.

A few years ago, the Jakobshavn glacier in Greenland really caught people's attention. In short order, this slow-moving stream of ice suddenly doubled its speed. It started dumping a whole lot more ice into the Atlantic. Other glaciers also sped up.

India today successfully launched its first indigenous day-night and all-weather radar imaging satellite RISAT-1. It is slated to boost country's remote-sensing capabilities and facilitate agriculture and disaster management. Till now, India depended on images from a Canadian satellite as existing domestic remote-sensing spacecraft cannot take pictures of the earth during cloud cover. "The satellite can give valuable data like soil moisture, glacier positions and other details," Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman K Radhakrishnan said.