The world’s highest glacier near the summit of Mount Everest is losing its ice at an alarming rate due to global warming, according to a new study published in the Nature Portfolio Journal Climate and Atmospheric Science.  

An analysis of the ice core drilled from South Col Glacier at an altitude of 8,000 meters showed that the ice that took 2,000 years to form has melted in around 25 years as the Nepal side of the peak continues to lose decades worth of ice every year. 

The study concluded that the South Col glacier, one of the sunniest spots on the earth, has turned from snowpack to ice, losing its ability to reflect solar radiation, resulting in rapid melting and increased sublimation.

“Once South Col Glacier ice was regularly exposed, approximately 55 meters of glacier thinning is estimated to have occurred in a quarter-century — thinning over 80 times faster than the nearly 2,000 years it took to form the ice at the surface. It also suggests that the South Col Glacier may be on the way out – it may already be a ‘relic’ from an older, colder, time, ” Mariusz Potocki, a glacial chemist and doctoral candidate in the Climate Change Institute, University of Maine who collected the highest ice core on the planet.

The findings serve as a warning that rapid glacier melt at some of the Earth's highest points could bring worsening climate impacts, including more frequent avalanches and a drying-up of water sources that around 1.6 billion people in mountain ranges depend on for drinking, irrigation and hydropower. 

The researchers also note that increasing overall surface ice mass loss in the region — the transition from permanent snowpack to majority ice cover — could have been triggered by climate change since the 1950s, with sublimation enhanced by rising air temperatures. The impacts of climate change on the glacier have been most intense since the late 1990s. 

The study was conducted in 2019 by the National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Everest Expedition and involved researchers from eight countries.

“It answers one of the big questions posed by our 2019 National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Everest Expedition — whether the highest glaciers on the planet are impacted by human-source climate change. The answer is a resounding yes, and very significantly since the late 1990s,” said Paul Mayewski, Scientific and Expedition Lead, and Director, Climate Change Institute University of Maine, and lead author. 

In addition to these critical climate findings, the warming will also have a compounding effect on the experience of climbing Mt. Everest.  The surface on some sections of the route will gradually shift from snowpack to ice to exposed bedrock, and avalanches will become more dynamic due to the instability of the ice.  Glacier melt is even likely to destabilize the Khumbu base camp, home to many climbers and logistics teams throughout the climbing season. On the other hand, the warming air will mean more oxygen for climbers.

The study is the latest in a series of climate related studies conducted in the Himalayas in recent years. 

In 2020, a study funded by NASA found that the dust from the Sahara desert was contributing to the rapid melting of the himalayan snow caps. 

In the same year, a part of the National Geographic expedition    published a study showing how the air pressure around Everest was increasing due to climate change. 

The findings of the study are all too familiar for Sherpas who have been witnessing first hand the changes in the himalayas.  

Kami Rita Sherpa, who has been climbing Everest since the late 1980s, said that the peak was gradually turning bare due to a meltdown of snow. It was also becoming common to see corpses that used to be covered in snow, he said.

“When I first climbed Everest 25 years ago, there used to be a lot of snow. But you don't see much snow these years,” said Kami Rita, who has climbed Mt. Everest 25 times.