Ice Stupa Equals Ingenuity

9/10/2015

Ice, Ice stupa, ingenuity, himalayan, himalayan mountains, water, snow melt, ladakh, humankind, glacier, artificial glacier, india, pheyang monastery

Ice Stupa About 200 Feet Tall

You may first ask, "Where and what in the world is an Ice Stupa?" Ice Stupa first demonstrates Humankind's ingenuity. Then the definition grows from Stupa, which is the name of a tower by a Himalayan temple, to an artificial glacier created by humans. Thus, the location: Ladakh. A mountain desert in the Himalayan mountains with villages in the highest northern reaches of India.

View of Melting Glacier From Space

All human life in this area of altitudes from 8,000 feet and higher are centered around glacial streams. Temperatures in the winter will drop to 86 degrees below zero and diverting water from the streams is necessary to support all life. Canals are built to send water toward deserts so food can be grown, but acute shortages of water happen almost every April and May. Then flash flooding starts when the snow melts in the mountains causing much of the water to flow into the Indus river after the farming season has ended. That is greatly needed water for the start of the next planting season. In addition, Climate Change has caused the glaciers to decrease in size, only to provide less water over all.

Water Supplied to Farms from Ice Stupa

However, over the past two years experiments at the Pheyang Monastery by SECMOL Institute have created artificial glaciers called Ice Stupas. They are created by a series of pipes that send the melting mountain waters into the air to freeze. Within a short period of time a mountain of ice grows into a storage area of water that would have otherwise been lost. This frozen water in the shape of an ice mountain then melts to supply the farms with water when they need the life giving liquid the most. Human ingenuity!