The world's highest campsite has evolved from a rudimentary staging post for pioneering climbers into a sprawling seasonal settlement complete with heated dining tents, generators, internet connections and gourmet kitchens.

Now scientists say that growing comfort on Mount Everest is coming at a cost.

A new peer-reviewed study published in the journal Regional Environmental Change, has found that the rapid expansion of commercial climbing and the increasingly resource-intensive lifestyle at Everest Base Camp generate enough heat to melt an estimated about 3 million kg of glacier ice and snow during a single climbing season, strengthening calls to move the camp off the Khumbu Glacier.

The researchers stressed that global climate change remains the dominant driver of glacier retreat in the Himalayas, but said the concentration of thousands of people living on the glacier each spring creates additional localised pressure that is likely to increase as Everest tourism continues to grow.

Everest Base Camp has changed dramatically since the pioneering expeditions of the 1950s.

What was once a small collection of basic tents has become what the study describes as a "seasonal city", stretching about 1.6 kilometres across the glacier and covering 26.5 hectares with nearly 1,600 tents. During the 2023 spring climbing season, about 2,127 climbers, Sherpa guides, cooks and support staff lived there for around 50 days.

Graphics by Khim Lal Gautam

Commercial expeditions increasingly offer comforts once unimaginable at 5,364 metres, from heated dining tents and bakeries to charging stations, satellite communications and helicopter-supported logistics.

Supporting those services requires substantial fuel.

Researchers who surveyed every expedition operator at Base Camp found they consumed 824 cylinders of liquefied petroleum gas, 18,935 litres of kerosene and 5,130 litres of petrol during the 2023 climbing season for cooking, heating and electricity generation. The fuel released an estimated 95.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide and enough heat to melt about 2,338 tonnes of glacier ice. Human urine discharged directly onto the glacier could theoretically melt another 154 tonnes, bringing the total potential melt to about 3 million kg.

The authors said those figures represent only a tiny fraction of the Khumbu Glacier's overall ice loss, which is overwhelmingly driven by global warming, but noted that the heat is concentrated beneath one of the busiest sections of the glacier.

Satellite observations from 1991 to 2023 found land surface temperatures at the campground increased by about 0.28 degrees Celsius a year, roughly twice the warming rate recorded on adjacent glacier surfaces. The researchers said the satellite data alone cannot prove that human activity caused the difference, but suggested camping, fuel combustion and repeated disturbance of the glacier surface may contribute to local warming.

Everest Base Camp during the 2026 spring climbing season. Photo: Sensai Pema Waiba.

The study identifies two potential locations southwest of the current base camp on stable, ice-free ground rather than the glacier itself.

Relocating the camp, it says, could reduce environmental pressure on the Khumbu Glacier while providing safer helicopter access, easier logistics and warmer camping conditions, although climbers would face a slightly longer walk to the Khumbu Icefall.

The researchers acknowledged that their calculations are first-order estimates and do not include other sources of heat such as helicopter operations, pack animals or human metabolic activity, meaning the total human footprint could be even greater.

The lead author, Khim Lal Gautam, led Nepal's 2019 survey that established Everest's official height of 8,848.86 metres. Since 2022, he has headed the government's temporary office at Everest Base Camp, collecting much of the study's field data while overseeing expedition management. Gautam is also the first Nepali civil servant to summit Everest (2011) and the first surveyor in the world to summit it twice (2011 and 2019).

He has also authored ‘Pandhraun Chuli (Peak XV), a book on Everest measurement.

Gautam first publicly proposed relocating Everest Base Camp in an article published by Everest Chronicle in 2022, arguing that the rapidly thinning Khumbu Glacier would eventually make the site unsustainable. The new peer-reviewed study builds on that proposal with the first quantitative assessment of how human activity at the camp contributes to localised ice melt.

The findings come as glaciers around Everest continue to retreat rapidly because of climate change. A report by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) found glaciers in the Everest region have thinned by more than 100 metres over the past six decades, with the rate of ice loss nearly doubling since 2009.

The new study argues that while global warming remains the overwhelming cause of glacier retreat, human activity at Base Camp is adding localised stress to the shrinking ice.

With Everest attracting record numbers of climbers and expedition operators competing to provide ever more comfortable services, the researchers conclude that making mountaineering more sustainable may ultimately require not only reducing the environmental footprint of expeditions but also reconsidering whether the world's most famous base camp should remain on a rapidly changing glacier.