Opinion | Nepal ice-rock disaster shows need for climate action

As aid workers continue to search for the thousands of missing victims of the Nepal ice-rock collapse, climate scientists who have been studying the impact of rising temperatures on glaciers in the region have been warning others about the deadly consequences of inaction for decades.

Human-made climate change is a key factor for the rising temperatures that destabilize glaciers like those in the Himalayas responsible for the Aug. 26, 2026, event.

It should come as no surprise that in a warming world ice melts faster. Over the past few decades, roughly one-third of the ice cover in Nepal’s mountains has disappeared. Glaciers used to lie on permafrost: ground that is permanently frozen to some depth. In the Himalayas, the permafrost has started to warm and thaw, resulting in the ice, rock and mud to destabilize against the steep terrain. When glaciers melt, the primary consequence is the release of meltwater lakes that feeds into larger river systems.

Scientists report that a huge portion of glacier (approximately 2,000 feet wide) collapsed off the Langtang Lirung mountain in the Himalayas resulting in roughly half a million tons of ice, debris and water crashing into the valley without warning.

Climate scientists have been sounding the alarm for decades about the risks of increased glacier melting in a warming world. In 1988, Dr. James E. Hansen, a NASA director, gave Congressional testimony on consequences on the global climate by continuing to burn fossil fuels. The model scenarios he presented to Congress included the potential global impacts of continuing to burn fossil fuels as the primary energy source versus making policy changes to mitigate the threats of a warming planet.

Nearly 40 years later, the threats posed by continuing to burn fossil fuels that he predicted in 1988 are happening in real time worldwide: deadly wildfires, extreme weather events. The Nepal disaster is the most recent impact of what happens as temperatures soar.

2026 is on track to break the all-time 2024 hottest year on human record. The Nepal disaster and melting glaciers are red flags that the world must come together to address the climate crisis. We have the technology and knowledge to mitigate future disasters, but we lack the political resolve to activate policies that will slow global warming. This climate-linked disaster, taking over 1,000 lives in an instant, should remind decision makers to take climate change seriously and act accordingly.

Jonathan Patz is a Vilas distinguished professor and John P. Holton chair of Health and the Environment at the Nelson Institute & Department of Population Health Sciences for the UW-Madison. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and former health co-chair for the first U.S. National Climate Assessment. He also served as a lead author for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

Bikram Poudel is a Ph.D. student in epidemiology at the Department of Population Health Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is also a registered public health professional in Nepal.

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