Himalayan glaciers providing critical water to nearly two billion people are melting faster than ever before due to climate change, exposing communities to unpredictable and costly disasters, scientists warned Tuesday.
"As it gets warmer, ice will melt, that was expected, but what is unexpected and very worrying is the speed," lead author Philippus Wester told AFP."This is going much faster than we thought."
The glaciers feed 10 of the world's most important river systems, including the Ganges, Indus, Yellow, Mekong, and Irrawaddy, and directly or indirectly supply billions of people with food, energy, clean air, and income."With two 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," said ICIMOD's deputy chief Izabella Koziell.Even if global warming is limited to the 1.5 to 2.
The world has warmed an average of nearly 1.2 °C since the mid-1800s, unleashing a cascade of extreme weather, including more intense heat waves, more severe droughts, and storms made more ferocious by rising seas.
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