According to a scientific study published by the World Weather Attribution group confirmed that human-induced global heating significantly destabilized the Himalayan environment. Rising temperatures, thinning glaciers, and thawing permafrost weakened a rock wall on Langtang Lirung mountain, triggering a massive glacier collapse and catastrophic downstream flash flooding.
According to the report, the study was carried out by the researchers from various countries by examining factors contributing to a slope failure event, including geological structure, warming, and changing precipitation patterns. Climate change is considered a destabilizing factor rather than the primary cause.
Dr Friederike Otto, a climate science professor at Imperial College London, which carried out the study, told the Guardian:
– Dr. Friedericke Otto told The Guardian
- Communities in Nepal are paying with their lives for a crisis driven by fossil fuel emissions thousands of miles away.
- When warming destabilises the roof of the world, no amount of local adaptation can fully shield vulnerable people downstream from this scale of destruction. Without much faster action to transition to zero fossil fuel emissions we will inevitably see more disasters of this scale occurring in the years to come.
Dr Ben Clarke, who researches extreme weather and climate change at Imperial, told the Guardian that the long-term changes around the glacier before its catastrophic collapse clearly demonstrated the “fingerprints of climate change.” He added “We found that climate change is transforming the high mountain environment, influencing many of the possible drivers of this collapse.”
Dr. Otto emphasized to AP News, “The most important thing to minimize the risk in this region is to rapidly stop using fossil fuels that lead to increasing global temperatures. All these drivers that we’ve talked about, permafrost melting, glacial melting, etc., will just become worse. And that means that events like this become more frequent.”
Related Resource Links
- Climate change made deadly Nepal glacier and rock collapse more likely, according to analysis | NBC News
- Nepal to use new flood study to claim millions from UN climate disaster fund | BBC
- Climate crisis probably weakened glacier that caused devastating Nepal-Tibet floods, first study finds | The Guardian
- Rapid Warming in the Himalaya Exacerbates Geohazard Cascades Beyond Adaptation Limits | World Weather attribution