Update: NYT Rushes To Blame Climate Change For Nepal’s Glacier Collapse—It Wasn’t
Anthony Watts writes at Climate Dispatch:
The New York Times (NYT), in its article “Climate Change Raises Risk of Disasters Like Nepal Floods,” claims that climate change increased the risk of the catastrophic glacier collapse and flooding in Nepal by thawing permafrost and destabilizing the mountainside. [some emphasis, links added]
This is false. The best evidence suggests the disaster was primarily caused by a complex cascade of geological failures and vulnerabilities in human infrastructure, not proof of a “climate crisis.”
“Climate change is heating up the Himalayas and supercharging the risk of disasters like the deadly flash flooding in Nepal and Tibet,” says the NYT, which quotes one researcher saying, “‘There’s a very straight link between climate change and these types of disasters.’”
Yet just a few paragraphs later, the article quotes Newcastle University geomorphologist Stuart Dunning,
“I don’t think we can simply say this is a result of climate change.”
A top meteorologist says the evidence points to geological failure and vulnerable infrastructure, not a “climate crisis.”
That caution should have been the headline. Instead, it was buried.
Dr. Roger Pielke Jr.’s analysis of the event, “What Actually Caused the Nepal Disaster,” reaches a much more measured conclusion.
Ironically, the NYT itself provides historical context that weakens its central narrative. The article acknowledges that glacier failures have occurred dozens of times in the China-Nepal border region since 1900.
Since these events occurred repeatedly for well over a century, long before human greenhouse gas emissions rose, this event cannot be automatically linked to modern greenhouse gas emissions and human-induced climate change.
Background from Previous Post
The disaster in Nepal is likely not over. And as expected, the climate alarmists are already claiming humans and CO2 are implicated. Some examples from the usual suspects.
CBC: Scientists fear Nepal’s disaster is just a glimpse of the carnage climate change could cause
Global warming contributes to conditions that make a glacier collapses, floods more likely, experts say
ABC Australia: Nepal flood exposes risks from melting glaciers and thawing permafrost. Scientists have warned for years that a warming climate is destabilising the Himalayas.
New York Times: Climate Change Raises Risk of Disasters Like Nepal Floods
The Guardian: Climate crisis could be destabilising mountain areas like Nepal
Forbes: Nepal Flash Flood: Experts Say Climate Change Primed Disaster
Scientific American: the Nepal disaster—and why climate change could make these events more likely
Etc., Etc., Etc.,
A more balanced perspective is presented at Explore All About Nepal: Are Himalayan floods becoming more dangerous as the mountains warm? Excerpts with my bolds.
The answer is increasingly concerning but it is not as simple as saying that every flood is caused by climate change. The danger comes from a combination of changing climate conditions, unstable terrain, expanding glacial lakes, extreme rainfall, rapidly changing rivers and development in narrow mountain valleys.
Glaciers in the Hindu Kush Himalaya are losing ice, while many high-altitude areas are experiencing changes in snow cover and frozen ground. These changes do not simply mean that there is “less ice.” They can also alter the stability of the entire mountain environment.
Flooding is not new to Nepal. Every monsoon, heavy rainfall causes rivers to swell, while landslides frequently block roads and damage settlements. But high-mountain floods can have another source. Water can suddenly be released from a glacier, a glacial lake or a temporary blockage in a mountain valley. A flood can also be triggered by a rock or ice avalanche entering a river. This is one reason Himalayan floods can be so difficult to predict.
The August 2026 disaster in the Nepal-China border region has highlighted precisely this problem. Preliminary scientific assessments indicate that an ice-rock avalanche entered the Lhende Khola system before producing a destructive downstream surge. Researchers have also emphasized that the exact chain of events is still being investigated.
Recent research has shown just how complicated the region can be. A 2026 study documented major outburst floods from supraglacial lakes along the China-Nepal Himalayan border in 2025, demonstrating that water can also accumulate and drain within or on top of debris-covered glaciers in ways that are difficult to observe from the ground.
Following the August 2026 disaster, scientists told Reuters that warming temperatures are contributing to instability in high mountain ice and rock, while emphasizing that the precise trigger of the event remains under investigation. That scientific caution is important. Climate change is a risk multiplier, not a single switch that turns every mountain hazard on.
The August 2026 disaster is a painful reminder of what can happen when a high-altitude event suddenly connects with a populated river valley. It also demonstrates why Himalayan hazards cannot be viewed separately. A glacier can influence a lake. A lake can interact with a landslide. A landslide can change a river. A river can destroy infrastructure many kilometres away. That chain is what makes the Himalayas so difficult—and increasingly important—to understand.
Further Commentary on Switzerland 2025 Disaster: Unstable slopes and warming peaks: Scientists race to understand Blatten collapse
Blatten dominated discussions at an international landslide conference held last month in Lausanne, where over 60 experts gathered to understand how such an event unfolded — and how to anticipate the next one.
Six months on, certain patterns have emerged, say scientists. The three largest Alpine landslides of the past 20 years — Piz Cengalo (2017), Piz Scerscen (2024) and now Blatten (2025) — all involved rockfalls onto glaciers that transformed into massive rock-ice avalanches and debris flows.
Whether Blatten can be attributed to climate change remains a central, unresolved question. Some scientists argue the link is evident. University of Zurich scientist Christian Huggel believes climate change played a key role in Blatten. “Of course, the geology, especially the layering and composition of the rock, is the key factor in such an event,” he told a conference in Innsbruck, Austria, in September. But Huggel believes that without climate warming, the Blatten landslide would have happened centuries later, if at all.
Others are more cautious. A July factsheet from the federal technology institute ETH Zurich concluded it was “quite likely” that warming was a relevant factor, noting that the unstable rock zone lies within permafrost, which is sensitive to rising temperatures. Switzerland has warmed 2.9° degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times — about twice the global average — leading to widespread glacier loss, altered snowfall patterns and thawing permafrost.
Rockfalls are increasing as snowmelt and permafrost thaw worsen, but scientists say it’s still unclear whether larger rockslides are becoming more frequent, and it’s hard to make reliable statements about very big, rare events as data is uneven. “Processes are interlinked and difficult to disentangle,” says ETH Zurich glaciologist Daniel Farinotti, who hopes to present firmer conclusions about the Blatten disaster next year. “What can be said is that the local geology, climate, glacier and permafrost all played a role [in the Blatten disaster].”
Complete Geology Page Discussion: Nepal Flash Flood, August 2026: Ice-Rock Avalanche, River Damming, and Cascading Himalayan Hazards
The chart above from DMI shows why Arctic ice is melting slowly. This year the daily mean temperature never went above freezing, From now on it will only grow colder. August is significant because it is the last month that NH ice extent declines. Those familar with the datasets know that March monthly average is taken as the annual maximum ice extent, and September monthly average serves as the annual minimum. Importantly both months are neutral, i.e. the ice extent values are nearly the same at the month start and end. All the melting occurs April to August, all the freezing October to February.
