The Himalayan glaciers are melting, but that melting is not an overnight affair. Snow falls, precipitates and deposits. Some of it melts, some evaporates, some remains. As the snow falls next year, the old snow gets compressed, compacted under its own weight. A combination of temperature and pressure leads to decomposition and the snow metamorphoses into ice. The transformation takes six to seven years. Snow crystals, hexagonal in shape at first, turn tetragonal, granular, and finally b