Melting Himalayan Glaciers Are Making Pakistan’s Floods Worse
Dissolving snow and ice in the iconic mountain range is contributing to floods in Pakistan, droughts in China and changes on Mount Everest.
The Passu glacier in Pakistan's Gilgit-Baltistan region in June.
Photographer: Abdul Majeed/AFP/Getty Images
Every year, as the weather warms, teams of Indian scientists trek the Himalayan mountains to study the Chhota Shigri glacier in India’s northern state of Himachal Pradesh. For the past decade and a half, they’ve recorded the extent of snow cover, checked the temperature of the air and soil, observed the surface of ice formations and measured the discharge from seasonal snowmelt that feeds the river valleys below.
This year, record-breaking glacial melt washed the discharge measuring station clean away.