What caused the melting of glaciers? What caused the glaciers to melt?
2. Human factors. In addition to natural climate factors, another main reason for the rapid melting of glaciers is population expansion. Due to human overgrazing, over-reclamation, deforestation, indiscriminate exploitation of Chinese herbal medicines and groundwater, the speed of glacier retreat has been greatly accelerated. With the development of society, the population has doubled, but the cultivated land area can't increase accordingly. The contradiction between man and land led to three large-scale deforestation and land reclamation in northwest China in the 20 years after the founding of New China. Take Gansu Province as an example. By the end of 1990s, the area of soil erosion in Gansu Province accounted for 85.6% of the total area, and the sandstorm weather increased obviously, which further aggravated the glacier shrinkage.