Chinese scientists have reported success with the country’s first experiment with covering a glacier to slow the pace of its melting. Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences covered 500 square metres (5,380 sq ft) of the Dagu Glacier on the Tibetan Plateau in early August 2020. Two months later, the covered areas were found to be one metre thicker than parts directly exposed to the sun. Scientists said the glacier had shrunk 70 per cent over the past 50 years. As ice sheets around the…