() — The world’s highest peaks risk losing up to 80% of their volume by the end of the century, with profound consequences for millions of people in the worst climate scenarios, international scientists in Nepal warn in a new report.
The report, published this Tuesday by the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD)examined the impact of climate change in an area stretching 4.1 million square kilometers from Afghanistan in the west to Myanmar in the east.
The report found that glaciers in the Himalayan and Hindu Kush region melted 65% faster in the 2010s compared to the previous decade, suggesting that higher temperatures are already having an impact. .
Ice and snow in the region feed 12 rivers that provide fresh water to 2 billion people in 16 countries, including China, India and Pakistan, and eventually too much water will become too little, the report warns.
The same group published a report in 2019which found that even in the most optimistic case, where average global warming was limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures, the region would lose at least a third of its glaciers.
The group’s updated report shows those projections have worsened since then.
With a warming of between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius, the world’s highest mountainous region will lose between 30% and 50% of its volume by 2100, according to the latest report.
If the world exceeds 3 degrees Celsius of warming, the glaciers of Nepal and Bhutan in the eastern Himalayas risk losing 75% of their ice, and for just one more degree, that increases to 80%, according to the report.
The global annual mean temperature near the surface for each year between 2023 and 2027 is forecast to be between 1.1 and 1.8 degrees Celsius higher than the 1850-1900 average, according to the World Meteorological Organization.
Scientists regard 1.5 degrees of global warming as a key tipping point, beyond which the chances of extreme flooding, drought, wildfire and food shortages could rise dramatically.
“In the three pillars of climate action – in mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage – we are stuck or going down the wrong path; while the consequences of inaction are accelerating by the day,” Professor Saleemul Huq, director of the International Center for Climate Change and Development in Bangladesh, said in the report.
Glaciers in the Hindu Kush and Himalayan mountainous region are melting faster than expected. (Credit: courtesy of Jitendra Raj Bajracharya/ICIMOD)
Rapid warming and melting of glaciers
Around 240 million people live in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region, many of their cultures dating back thousands of years, and another 1.65 billion people live downriver.
Many high-mountain communities rely on glacial waters to irrigate crops and support their livestock, but accelerated melting would inundate farmland downstream followed by dry spells as water sources dry up, according to the report.
Erosion of glacier slopes also increases the likelihood of flooding, landslides, and avalanches, increasing the risk for millions of people living in mountain communities.
“For them, this is their home, and their livelihoods depend mainly on agriculture, livestock, tourism, and medicinal and aromatic plants,” said co-author Amina Maharjan, Senior Livelihoods and Migration Specialist at ICIMOD.
“What we realized in doing this assessment is that all of these are very, very sensitive to slight changes in climatic conditions and cryosphere conditions in the region,” he said.
For example, snowfall patterns are increasingly out of sync with seasonality, covering pastures and reducing grazing land for cattle, Maharjan explained. Over the past half decade, yaks have died due to lack of food in India, Nepal and Bhutan, leaving farmers with huge income losses, she added.
The remoteness and rugged terrain of the region also means that mountain communities often lack access to immediate disaster response.
“The glaciers of the Hindu Kush Himalayas are an important component of the Earth system. With 2 billion people in Asia depending on water from glaciers and snow here, the consequences of losing this cryosphere are too great to contemplate. We need leaders to act now to prevent catastrophes,” said Izabella Koziell, Deputy Director General of ICIMOD.
Unique species are also threatened by adverse changes in the climate of diverse ecosystems that include tropical and subtropical rainforests, temperate coniferous forests, and cold deserts, according to the report.
Fourteen butterfly species have already gone extinct from Pakistan’s Murree Hills, according to the report, while endemic frog species are among the hardest hit by climate change as they experience reproductive problems and developmental deformities.
