Study: Himalaya glaciers rapidly melting because of climate change

June 20 (UPI) -- A new peer-reviewed study on the Himalayas reveals the mountain glaciers disappeared 65% faster between 2011 and 2020 compared to the previous decade, threatening its population and species.

The report by the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development, presented Tuesday at the Bonn Climate Change Conference, warns that the glaciers could lose 80% of their current volume by the end of the century.

"The report warns policymakers to need to prepare for the cascading impacts of climate change in the critical mountain biome, which will affect a quarter of the world's population," ICIMOD said in a statement.

"Urgent international support and regional cooperation [is] now vital for inevitable, near-term loss and damage and to help communities' adaptation efforts."

The ICIMOD, an intergovernmental knowledge and learning center working on behalf of the people of the Hindu Kush Himalaya, called the study the most accurate assessment of the changes in Asia's high mountain cryosphere to date and its impact on life there.

It warned that as the glaciers deteriorate, snow cover is projected to decline by 25%, reducing the flow of freshwater that it supplies to major rivers, including the Hemland, Amu Darya and the Indus. It will also lead to a decrease in frozen ground, which can result in a rise of landslides and other infrastructure problems at high elevation.

"The glaciers of the Hindu Kush Himalaya are a major component of the Earth system," Izabella Koziell, ICIMOD's deputy director general, said in a statement. "With 2 billion people in Asia reliant on the water that glaciers and snow here hold, the consequences of losing this cryosphere are too vast to contemplate. We need leaders to act now to prevent catastrophe."

Koziell said there is still time for government leaders to act to save the region, but it will take immediate and significant action to cut emissions now to make a difference.

"Every increment of a degree of warming matters to glaciers here and to the hundreds of millions of people that depend on them," Koziell said. "As this study shows, alongside urgent mitigation action, we need adaptation funds and programs and ecosystem restoration to be rapidly scaled up, and the mobilization of finance for losses and damages."

The alarm over climate change's impact on the Kush Himalayan region dates back to 2009, when a United Nations-led study said droughts and catastrophic floods were destroying crops, depleting water supplies and killing livestock throughout the area.