How rising temperatures likely contributed to Nepal’s deadly flood

Flash floods on the Nepal-Tibet border have killed roughly 160 people, with hundreds more missing, after a glacier collapse triggered a landslide that satellite imagery suggests involved a 2,000-foot-wide chunk of ice falling nearly 4,000 feet. The impact was forceful enough to register as a magnitude 5.2 seismic event, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Researchers point to broader warming trends: Nepal's glaciers lost nearly a quarter of their area between 1970 and 2010, and more than 160 smaller glaciers have vanished entirely. Scientists caution it's too early for conclusive causal claims, but note that warm temperatures may have melted snow atop the glacier before its collapse, and that similar warming-linked collapses have killed people in Switzerland and Italy in recent years.

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