Impacts of climate change on himalayan glaciers: Processes, predictions and uncertainties

The glaciers of the Hindu Kush Himalaya region (HKH) produce the water for around 40% of the world’s population. Over the past century these glaciers have lost mass in response to recent climate change and they are predicted to lose more in the future. The precise ways in which glaciers will respond to future climate change are still unknown; many will melt entirely, but some will undergo a transition to debris-covered glaciers which will retard melting, and others will undergo a further transition to form rock glaciers whose response to atmospheric warming and changes in precipitation is as yet unclear. As a result, this chapter stresses the paraglacial response of mountain systems to deglaciation to better understand future glacier recession in the region.