Climate Change: Sudden Melting of Himalayan Glaciers Sparks Concern

While they had previously seemed to defy the global trend, the glaciers of the Pamir Mountains in Central Asia underwent a massive melt last year, illustrating the recent intensification of climate warming.

Latest Giants

When their counterparts around the world were retreating dangerously, the glaciers of the western Kunlun, the Karakoram (home to the second-highest peak on Earth) and the eastern Pamir remained largely stable, or even advanced noticeably, between the 1970s and the early 21st century.

As part of work published in the journal Advances in Climate Change Research, a team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences studied the recent evolution of Kangxiwa Glacier, which runs about 3 kilometers and lies in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

While this ice mass, peaking at an altitude of 5,350 meters, had previously shown only slight fluctuations before 2022, the researchers highlighted a significant intensification of its melting rate. In 2025, a record annual ice loss was recorded, corresponding to an average thickness loss of 1.5 meters across the glacier. According to the team, this figure is four times higher than the 2011-2024 average.

Until recently, the Pamir mountains in central Asia have bucked the global melting trend, but in 2025, the region’s glaciers experienced a massive loss of ice due to extreme heat https://t.co/4HRh0QsOkz

— New Scientist (@newscientist) May 30, 2026

Not surprisingly, the unprecedented melting rate documented at Kangxiwa, as well as at other glaciers in the eastern Pamir, results from an exceptionally hot year. “Unlike previous instances where extreme temperatures were concentrated in a single month, they persisted throughout the entire 2025 melt season,” notes the team.

Implications

Indicating that the massive ice sheets of the Pamir and Karakoram are no longer exceptions, these new data also raise concerns among the authors of the study about an intensification of their melting.

According to Shaun Eaves of Victoria University of Wellington, while these results clearly align with the global trend, it is still too early to determine whether this trajectory is irreversible for this particular region.

“The first precise measurements of Kangxiwa’s glacier mass date back to 2011; measurements in the years to come will be essential to refine this trajectory,” he concludes.

Earlier this year, Swiss researchers had clarified the fate of the 211,000 terrestrial glaciers.