Climate change made deadly Nepal glacier and rock collapse more likely, according to analysis

An analysis has concluded that human-caused global warming and decades of rising temperatures thinned glaciers and thawed mountain permafrost in the Himalayas, likely destabilizing a slope that collapsed last month in Nepal. The resulting glacier and rock collapse unleashed catastrophic flooding across the region.

The disaster resulted in nearly 1,400 deaths and left thousands of people missing. According to scientists, the underlying long-term warming trends helped set the deadly mountain collapse in motion, demonstrating how climate change increases the likelihood of such extreme and lethal geographic events.