Vanishing Ice on Highest Mountains Threatens Quarter of Humanity
A new study says rapidly melting glaciers in Hindu Kush Himalayan region can trigger floods, landslides and over time drastically reduce freshwater supplies in 12 rivers.
A family show the land where their house previously stood before it was washed away by a cloudburst at Youlkham village in Nubra, Ladakh in India in 2019.
Photographer: Prashanth Vishwanathan/BloombergRapidly melting glaciers in Asia’s Hindu Kush Himalayan region — home to the world’s highest mountains — are threatening the lives and livelihoods of as many as two billion people downstream, according to a new study.
The glaciers thawed 65% faster in the 2011 to 2020 period compared with the preceding decade and may lose 80% of their current volume by the end of this century on current emissions trajectories, the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, or ICIMOD, found in its latest study. This may over time drastically reduce freshwater supplies in 12 rivers that flow across 16 nations in the region, it said.