In August, 2024, several homes in Thame village in Nepal’s Namche region were swept away in a flood caused by a glacial lake bursting its banks. An estimated were displaced.

As global temperatures rise with climate change, there is increasing danger of more such glacial lake outburst floods, warned scientists at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development who monitored the Thyangbo lake using satellite imagery.

It isn’t just the residents of the Himalayas who are vulnerable to such disasters. Global warming is accelerating glacier melt, decreasing snow cover, increasing permafrost thaw and prompting more extreme rainfall events and natural hazards, according to Mountains and Glaciers: Water Towers, the United Nations World Water Development Report 2025 released on March 21. Nearly 2 billion people depend on glaciers, snow and mountain runoff for water for drinking, washing, and agriculture.

To draw attention to the challenge, the United Nations General Assembly has designated 2025 as the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation. March 21 every year will be marked as the World Day for Glaciers.

At a press conference ahead of the release of the United Nations report, French glaciologist Heidi Sevestre described the plight of those on the frontlines of climate change by narrating a story about...