Snow cover

Climatology

Cryosphere

Physical geography

Geology

Oceanography

Global warming

Climate change

Snow

Geography

Sea ice

Environmental science

Meteorology

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Significance Climate warming is impacting the cryosphere in high mountain ranges, thereby enhancing the probability for more and larger mass-wasting processes to occur. This tree-ring–based snow avalanche reconstruction in the Indian Himalayas shows an increase in avalanche occurrence and runout distances in recent decades. Statistical modeling suggests that this increase in avalanche activity is linked to contemporaneous climate warming. These findings contradict the intuitive assumption that warming results in less snow, and thus fewer snow avalanches in the region, with major implications for disaster risk management and risk mitigation in a region with steadily increasing human occupation.

Climate warming enhances snow avalanche risk in the Western Himalayas