At the end of every summer, scientist Li Zhongqin takes his seasonal hike near the top of a glacier in the Tianshan mountains in China's far northwestern region of Xinjiang.
Li scrambles over a frozen ridge and heads toward a lone pole wedged in the ice. Clouds emerge from a peak above and quickly blow past. He stops to catch his breath. He is at 14,000 feet. The snow is thick. The air is thin.
"This is called a sight rod," he says, grasping the pole. "We come up here each month to check it, to see how fast the glacier's melting. Each year, the glacier is 15 feet thinner."
Li, who heads the Tianshan Mountains Glaciological Station of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, points to a valley beyond a valley of boulders below to another glacier in the distance. "Twenty years ago, when I was a young scientist, these two glaciers were connected," he says. "But now, look: They're completely separate. Things are changing very, very quickly."
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Li, who heads the Tianshan Mountains Glaciological Station of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, points to a valley beyond a valley of boulders below to another glacier in the distance. "Twenty years ago, when I was a young scientist, these two glaciers were connected," he says. "But now, look: They're completely separate. Things are changing very, very quickly."