Kathmandu, Nov. 19 -- Nepali Times spoke to Director General Kamal Ram Joshi of Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (DHM) about weather extremes and changing rainfall patterns. Excerpts:

Nepali Times: Is the risk of glacial lakes bursting as serious as it is made out to be?

Kamal Ram Joshi: Analysing meteorological data of the past 30 years we see that average temperatures in Nepal are rising at o.o56 Celsius per year. That may not seem like a lot, but it adds up over the decades. More worryingly, the rise in average temperature is much higher: 0.086 Celsius a year. The Himalaya is therefore more at risk from global warming. This means 24% of our glaciers retreated between 1977 to 2010, and in many of them glacial lakes are expandin...