18/08/2026
Western Himalaya heating faster than the east: Study
A new study combining 120 years of observed temperature records (1901–2020) with eight global climate models finds that the western Himalaya (Ladakh, Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh) is warming faster than the central and eastern stretches of the range, in every season and under every emission scenario tested. Winter is warming faster than spring, night-time temperatures are climbing faster than daytime highs, and springtime snow loss over the western Himalaya could be three times larger on a high-emission pathway than on a low-emission one by the end of the century.
A research study, Vulnerability of the Himalayan region under the climate change, published in the Journal of Earth System Science, led by the Department of Remote Sensing and Geoinformatics, Birla Institute of Technology (BIT), Mesra, Ranchi, with the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, and Ashoka University, assessed how temperature and snow are changing across three sectors of the Indian Himalayan range, and how far that change could go by 2100.The team used two kinds of evidence. The first is a 120-year record of actual temperature measurements across the region, running from 1901 to 2020. The second is a set of eight global climate models, first checked against what has already happened and then run forward to 2100 under five possible futures — from a world that cuts emissions sharply to one that keeps burning fossil fuels at the current pace. Two seasons are examined: winter, when snow builds up, and the pre-monsoon spring months, when it melts. The range is split into three stretches, studied separately: the western Himalaya (Ladakh, Jammu & Kashmir, and Himachal Pradesh), the central Himalaya (largely Uttarakhand), and the eastern Himalaya (Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, and the wider North-East). Between them, they hold more than 15,000 glaciers and feed the Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra, the rivers that roughly 1.5 billion people depend on. The warming has already reached about 1°C, and it is not evenly spread