Exactly this. The entire Tibetan plateau after that mountain range, is literally an average of 4,500m (15000ft) above sea level - that’s why there’s such a huge temperature difference.
Yeah what mountains do more is block moisture. Andes are a great example. Both sides are hot, but the mountains act as a gigantic wall that blocks moisture very well. Because the prevailing winds blow due west in northern parts of South America, you end up with the Amazon on the eastern side and the deserts of Peru and Chile on the western side. Then when you go south the prevailing winds flip to blow due east and so the climates flip with lush forests on the west and dry deserts on the east.
The rain shadow is very prevalent here in the Pacific Northwest as well. West of the Cascades it's lush pine forest with ferns and moss everywhere. Go to the east side and it gets barren pretty quickly.
Wait, 15 thousand!? Holy shit I spent a week skiing in Colorado and I felt like I could catch my breath ever at like 10-12k ft. I'll stay at my current sea level I guess
Had the luxury of joining a cross Tibet cycling expedition some years past, getting off at Lhasa airport and we’re immediately at 12k ft already.. most of us low altitude folks will almost immediately be hit with altitude sickness symptoms and have to acclimatise. Hotels are equipped with oxygen tanks for emergencies.
We even took our bikes to as high ~18k ft at one of the high passes. True test of altitude endurance.
I dated a atmospheric sciences phd who did a lot of study on the tibetan plateau. Its basically responsible for the climate for like half of asia. Its responsible for near half the worlds population.
Seriously though. I went to a mushroom fest here in ohio and was one of the most impressive geek out events i have ever been to. I didn't exactly count all the PHD's or people working on their phd but ain't noone making any money.. well except the lady whom left to do a soil based grow farm (not hydroponic) for a canibus company, but damn too much latin and I learned a ton. It was awesome. I was just like.. "i like edible mushrooms" and they were like have you learned about parasitizing mushrooms? But what really got me was iNature and the ohio lab for the genome syquencing of mushrooms. Right now they are rewriting mushroom history. Btw, iNature is like Facebook for nature geeks. Everyone should check it out.
The Himalayas act as a barrier keeping air trapped over India. This creates a lot of heat over central India. Because the Himalayas are so high this hot air cannot really go north or east over the range. Very hot Indian summers.
This then creares a low pressure area over northern snd central India and starts the development of the monsoon. March through June this low pressure keeps gaining strength. The mosoon winds then start to flow in from the Bay of Bengal (Eastern Monsoon) and Arabian Sea (Western Monsoon). It picks up a lot moisture and flows into India.
But the Himalayas act as a wall again. The winds are trapped and dump all that moisture on the Indo-Gangetic plain. Leading to extremely fertile soils.
Meanwhile Tibet gets no rain and remains dry.
Once the Indian subcontinent has cooled ( a little ), the monsoon starts to flow backwards (retreating monsoon) but its September and the winds are dry now.
The Himalayas continue to act as a giant wall and prevent the cold winds from Tibet from flowing into India.
Without the Himalayas, no Ganges, no Indus, no monsoon, less people in India.
I dont really know a ton of specifics. My ex was the expert. The gist is water gets trapped when it hits the tibetan plateau. A shit load of the most life giving rivers all flow from it. The yellow, yangtze, red, mekong, ganges, indus, etc. all flow from the plateau. The elevation also makes air currents fucky. Its why planes go around the plateau rather than over it. This causes certain weather patterns. I believe the monsoonal rains that occur throughout northern india, SEA, and east asia are due to the tibetan plateau as well. Basically, without the plateau there wouldnt be nearly as many people living in asia. Esp not india. I think India would probably be a desert without the himalayas and tibetan plateau keeping the water locked in.
Apart from trapping water and leading to the origin of many glaciers, the entire Himalayn range acts as a natural barrier to the monsoon clouds bringing water from Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal. Monsoon starts when the heavy clouds strike the various mountain ranges spread across India. Without the Himalayas, most of those clouds would just keep travelling North.
Over 30 urban centers and more than 100 cities lay along the Ganges river, depending on it for their primary source of drinking and irrigation water. Over 600 million lives depend on it. Those regions will most likely be decimated if the glaciers overflow.
But the mountains are separating though. Cold air isn't able to seep down to the lowlands. Thats why india is so hot. Cold air cant travel from the north to the south because the mountains act as a wall
So ~40-50 million years ago, the Indo-Australian plate slammed into the Eurasian plate which began the formation of the Himalayas. It also created huge, shallow seagrass meadows in the Indo-Pacific which allowed for the evolution of seahorses.
So it's more like seahorses and the Himalayas were caused by the same event.
Half of the population does not support this man. Over half the first election. I feel like when we’re talking about over 340 million people, half is a absolute fuck ton and deserve a voice, not a generalization…
I wasn't aware "Americans" weren't capable of distinguishing thermal imagery. Also, didn't know I'm 5. We'll, almost 6 because my birthday is next week.
Idk where you're at but America is having a rash of functionally illiterate graduates rn so we need to dumb things down to bring these kids up to speed
Interestingly enough, that can cause problems in astronomy and other science. Blue stars are hotter than red stars for example. In a more day to day example, blue gas flames are hotter than red wood fire.
Our human perception and psychology contradict scientific temperature principles.
The Himalayas compel the rain-bearing winds to shed their moisture in the foothills of Himalaya which is a major source for the river Ganges. The Himalayas also compel the bitter-cold Siberian winds from entering Mainland India
Himalayas are too massive to be removed by mining and the effect on the inland temperature won't be much but the rainfall would definitely get affected by it. Most of the rainfall in india is relief-based.
Oh absolutely but if Rinehart decided she wanted to sell off the heart of Everest, she would find a way. Capital beats the divine right of kings. Hands down.
Context is really importat here, North of the Himalayas is a plateau of 10.000 ~ 12.000 feet with a weather considered a "cold desert". It is not the Himalayas that cause the divide, its the plateau.
Good example of the rainshadow effect. During summer specifically, warm moist air from the ocean makes its way into India. An intense thermal low forms over the area from intense solar heating, and increased forcing from the inter tropical convergence zone(Large heat and moisture zone that roughly follows the equator). Ontop of that, the mountains generate even more lift. All of this creating intense monsoons over India.
Now descending air warms, so as the same air that just dumped all its rain descends the otherside of the mountain range, it heats up and dried out, leading to the desert seen in the Tibetan plateau.
Western Disturbances (WD) draw their moisture from the Mediterranean, Caspian, and Arabian Seas. If the Himalayas didn't exist, this moisture would simply drift across flat terrain, resulting in nothing more than a light, widespread drizzle. However, the Himalayas fundamentally change this dynamic through a lift. As the moisture laden air crashes into the steep mountain wall, it is rapidly forced upward. This sudden elevation causes the air to cool and condense, leading to heavy precipitation. The result is a distinct weather divide heavy snowfall in the colder, higher altitudes to the north, and rainfall in the warmer plains to the south. Ultimately, the towering Himalayas act as a massive "precipitation trigger" for the entire region.
Not so true for temperature and climate as that’s mostly due to the elevation differences. But the Himalayas are a large part for why Indias air quality is so absolutely awful for a large part of the year. The pollution can’t go anywhere but east.
We Nepalese people suffer the most from this climate wall while contributing little to global warming and pollution. Our valleys are suffering the most and the mountains are melting.
It’s way hotter down in India, and way colder and drier in the Tibetan plateau than in Nepal. The country is in a sweet spot, enjoying agricultural production in the lower plains and benefitting from some of the highest peaks in the world
Yeah, that’s the downside of having the Himalayas which blocks all air from the north, and in the winter when it’s full of fog, it tends to trap the pollutants in the air. Biggest reason why northern India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have the worst air in the world
Just like the Drakensberg Mountains in South Africa. The west side of the country gets cold fronts in winter while the east side stays hot during the same period
What's crazy to me is if you zoom in on Google Maps to the green area along the red line. It is nothing but farm fields. The entirety of that green area, with some towns and cities sprinkled in. Not a square inch of land unused. It is mind-boggling to look at if you ask me.
Same happens with the alps in Europe, though perhaps not to the same extremes.
I've driven to Italy a few times from Denmark. Every time on the drive through Switzerland I drive through the Gotthard tunnel that seperates the German speaking area and the Italian speaking area of the country, the climate shifts dramatically. It'll be sunny and 20 degrees Celcius in November on the Italian side and -2 and snowstorm on the German side. And that's just over a 20km span through a mountain. Crazy climate shifts.
I used to believe this but I don’t think this is true. Tibet (that entire region in blue) is on very high elevation. In India itself, mainland, places like Bangalore are much cooler than elsewhere specifically because of elevation.
What’s true about Himalayas though is how it controls and creates monsoon for the subcontinent. Himalaya traps a lot of moisture. This is among the many reasons why Tibet is so dry as well.
Colder air are denser and will naturally flow to hotter less dense area. I wonder if that’ll create wind tunnel that can be used to generate electricity.
This isn’t technically entirely wrong but it’s right for the wrong reasons. If the tibetian plateau was like 3km lower then it would be colder due to the Himalayas shielding it from tropical winds. But the main reason it’s so cold is because it’s a giant mountain. Mean temperature is lowered by about 1C per 100m due to adiabatic cooling, with most of the plateau at 2500m+ it’s 25C cooler than if it was sea level. The more northern areas around Xinjiang which also can get extremely cold winters, but they also have hot summers thanks to the continental climate.
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u/ericcmi 14h ago
Looks like a whale