(GIST OF YOJANA) HIMANSH, India’s Remote, High- Altitude Station
(GIST OF YOJANA) HIMANSH, India’s Remote, High- Altitude Station
As part of the Indian government's initiatives to better study and quantify the Himalayan glacierresponses towards the climate change National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR), Goa, under the Ministry of Earth Science has established a high altitude research station in Himalaya called HIMANSH (meaning, a slice of ice), situated above 13,500 ft (more than 4000 m) at a remote region in Spiti, Himachal Pradesh.
The station houses many instruments to quantify the glacier melting and its relation to changing climate. Some of the instruments that are available at this research facility include Automatic Weather Stations for weather monitoring, water level recorder for quantifying the glacier melt, ground penetrating radar to know the thickness of glaciers, geodetic GPS systems to study the glacier movements, snow fork for studying snow thickness, steam drill, snow corer, I temperature profilers, as well as various glaciological tools. Also, this will be used by the researchers as a base for undertaking surveys using Terrestrial Laser Scanners (TLS) and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) that would digitize the glacier motion and snow cover variations with exceptional precision. Himansh will provide the much needed fillip to the scientific research on Himalayan glaciers and its hydrological contribution.