SINGAPORE: Climate change is highly likely to have contributed to the catastrophic glacier collapse that flooded parts of Nepal and Tibet in late August, killing around 1,400 people and leaving thousands still missing, scientists said on Thursday (Sep 17).
Rapidly warming temperatures in the region have caused glaciers to thin and have melted ice and permafrost buried deep in the bedrock of the Himalayas, according to the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group of researchers.
While it is difficult to ascertain the precise role played by climate change in the collapse of around 2 sq km of rock wall and glacier ice on the Langtang Lirung mountain last month, soaring temperatures created the preconditions that made it more likely, researchers involved in the study said.
“There’s absolutely no doubt that human-induced climate change played a role here in the preconditioning of the disaster through permafrost thawing, through thinning of the glaciers, through having more rainfall instead of snow,” said Friederike Otto, a climatologist at Imperial College London.
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