How do you grow a glacier?

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From 60 Second Science: How do you grow a glacier?.

Villagers in the Hindu Kush and Karakoram mountains have practiced "glacier growing" for centuries, according to local legend. Historically, snowmelt often hasn’t provided enough water for crops or humans in the dry, high-altitude regions, so growing glaciers became crucial to survival. How did they do it? By combining "male" and "female" glaciers to grow the glaciers larger.

Before you laugh at what sounds like old-world witchcraft, consider this: Researcher Ingvar Tveiten from the Department of International Environment and Development Studies at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences seems to support the locals’ methods of glacier farming. While only a few villages still have glacier-growing elders, if Tveiten can refine and disseminate these techniques for glacier growing, it could go a long way to alleviating problems caused by population growth and glacier retreat in the poverty-plagued mountains of Central Asia.

So how does it work? Local tradition believes that there are two types of glaciers: [continue]

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