__NOTOC__ Mingyong Glacier is located in the

Yunnan Province Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the C ...

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, The glacier retreated 200 meters (656 feet) in four years. The region has also seen a rising

tree line The tree line is the edge of the habitat at which trees are capable of growing. It is found at high elevations and high latitudes. Beyond the tree line, trees cannot tolerate the environmental conditions (usually cold temperatures, extreme snowp ...

and these events are believed to be associated with

global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

. The glacier is sacred to the local

Tibetan Tibetan may mean: * of, from, or related to Tibet * Tibetan people, an ethnic group * Tibetan language: ** Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard ** Standard Tibetan, the most widely used spoken dial ...

peoples. The glacier is fed by snows which fall on 6,740 m (22,107 ft) Mount Meili, also known as the Meili Snow Mountain. Glaciers in China's Tibetan region are melting at 7 percent annually. At 28.5 degrees north and an elevation of 2,700 meters (8,858 ft), the glacier is located at the lowest latitude and elevation of any glacier in China.

References

Landforms of Yunnan Glaciers of China Geography of Dêqên Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture {{Yunnan-geo-stub

See also

References