The researchers, led by scientist Yevgeny Podolsky, have found that the collapse and crumbling of glaciers is caused by the sharp drop in temperature that causes the ice to break up after dark.
Podolski and his team spent three weeks near the source of the sounds on Mount Everest, confirming the cause was ice breaking due to very low temperatures after sunset.
“It was a cool experience,” said Podolsky, who works at the Center for Arctic Research at Hokkaido University in Japan. “During the day we worked in t-shirts, but when night fell the temperature could drop to around -15 degrees Celsius.”
He added: “After dark we heard a loud explosion and noticed the glacier was exploding.”
The team placed sensors on the ice to measure vibrations deep within the glacier, the same technique used to measure the magnitude of earthquakes.
The researchers collected seismic vibration data and compared it to temperature and wind data, helping to establish a strong relationship between temperature fluctuations and nighttime noise.
The research could help more teams of climate experts better understand the behavior of glaciers in remote areas such as the depths of the Himalayas, home to one of the largest stores of ice on Earth.
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