In 2019, the United States declassified spy satellite images of the region’s glaciers dating back to 1970, providing a new scientific baseline.įurther advances in satellite technology in the past five years, alongside bolstered field efforts, have buoyed scientists’ understanding of the changes underway. “There was always some uncertainty in the Himalaya - are they really melting?”, said Wester. Unlike the European Alps and North America’s Rocky Mountains, the region lacks a long historical record of field measurements that reveal whether glaciers are growing or shrinking. Scientists have struggled to assess how climate change is affecting the Hindu Kush Himalaya. At 3C of warming - what the world is roughly on track for under current climate policies - glaciers in the Eastern Himalaya, which includes Nepal and Bhutan, will lose up to 75% of their ice. The Hindu Kush Himalaya stretches 3,500 km (2,175 miles) across Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan.Īt 1.5 degrees Celsius or 2C of warming above preindustrial temperatures, glaciers across the entire region will lose 30% to 50% of their volume by 2100, the report said.īut where glaciers will melt most depends on location. “We’re losing the glaciers, and we’re losing them in 100 years’ time,” said Philippus Wester, an environmental scientist and ICIMOD fellow who was the lead author of the report. During the 2010s, the glaciers shed ice as much as 65% faster than they had in the preceding decade, according to the assessment by the Kathmandu-based International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), an intergovernmental scientific authority on the region. Glaciers in Asia’s Hindu Kush Himalaya could lose up to 75% of their volume by century’s end due to global warming, causing both dangerous flooding and water shortages for the 240 million people who live in the mountainous region, according to a new report.Ī team of international scientists has found that ice loss in the region, home to the famous peaks of Everest and K2, is speeding up.
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