More ‘Glacier Funerals’

When the Yala glacier in Nepal was declared “dead” in 2025, it was marked not by scientific instruments alone, but by a symbolic funeral. A similar funeral was organised in 2019 for the Pizol glacier in the Swiss Alps. Glaciers are no longer just retreating; many are vanishing entirely due to climate change across different glaciated regions globally.

The impacts of climate change on glaciers are often measured and presented primarily in terms of mass and area loss. But a new scientific study published in Nature Climate Change by researchers led by Lander Van Tricht of ETH Zurich aimed to model the total disappearance of the world’s glaciers (more than 2,00,000) in numerical terms under different global warming scenarios by 2100 (relative to pre-industrial levels).

Researchers are warning us about what they have termed ‘peak glacier extinction’- the year in which the highest number of glaciers is projected to disappear between 2025 and the end of the century. The results are nothing less than a man-made catastrophe. Under a +1.5°C warming scenario, peak extinction reaches around the year 2041 with about ~2,000 glaciers lost yearly. But, under a +4.0°C warming scenario, the peak shifts to the 2050s, but climbs to ~4,000 annual disappearances, which is 5 times the current yearly losses of ~750-800 glaciers. Stronger warming delays the peak of glacier losses because not only do small glaciers melt completely, but larger glaciers vanish as well.

Although under a +1.5°C warming pathway, nearly 50 per cent of today’s glaciers may survive. But the concern is that the world has already warmed by around 1.1°C. The current country-level climate action plans and emissions reduction targets put us on a pathway for +2.7°C of warming by 2100 — a trajectory where only about 20 per cent of the world’s glaciers are projected to survive. Under a worst-case +4.0°C scenario, fewer than 10 per cent would likely survive by the end of this century.

The disappearance of glaciers is highly varied by regions. Small glacier-dominated regions such as the European Alps and the Caucasus may face early peaks before 2040 and may lose 75 per cent to 90 per cent of total glaciers under a +2.7°C warming scenario. In comparison, High Mountain Asia, which houses more than one-third of the world’s glaciers are predicted to have a mid-century peak similar to the global trend.

From a regional perspective, it depicts a very grim picture for India and other South Asian countries. The Himalayas, often called the ‘Water Towers of Asia’ because of the very high number and volume of glaciers here, will face disastrous cascading impacts on their water resources, ecosystems and societies. It will also have cultural impacts, as glaciers also hold cultural and religious sentiments.

The UN declared 2025 as the International Year of Glacier Preservation, to highlight the importance of glaciers and also calling on nations to speed up climate actions to preserve glaciers. However, the current pace of climate actions, especially cutting emissions to limit global warming below 1.5°C, seems less likely to be realised. The updated warming projection of +2.7°C by 2100 will have disastrous impacts on the glaciers around the world. With the USA’s (the second-largest emitter of GHG) exit from the IPCC and Paris agreement, the global climate actions are expected to slow further. Only sustained global co-operation and individual countries rapidly cutting their emissions through adopting clean and alternative energy can pave the way forward to limit global warming and preserve the glaciers. Without this collective resolve, ‘glacier funerals’ will no longer remain rare symbolic events, but become regular ceremonies marking the irreversible loss of Earth’s frozen heritage.

Views expressed are personal. The writer is a Research Associate at Mobius Foundation and holds a PhD and MPhil in Physical Geography from Jawaharlal Nehru University