Researchers said the flood was caused by a "compound crisis" shaped by long-term warming, glacier retreat, permafrost thaw and geological instability.
asserted
flood → say → warming
A 2015 earthquake is also thought to have played a role.
asserted
earthquake → think → role
Climate change played a significant role in last month's deadly Himalayan disaster in Nepal, thinning glaciers and thawing mountain permafrost in ways that likely destabilised the slope before it collapsed, a report released Thursday by the World Weather Attribution group said.
asserted
report → play → group
The collapse, near Nepal's border with China on 26 August, triggered a torrent of water, ice, boulders and sediment that swept through communities along the Trishuli River corridor, killing more than 1,300 people and leaving over 5,000 missing.
asserted
that → trigger → 5,000
"This disaster was not an extreme weather event, but the fingerprints of climate change are still clear to see in long-term changes," said Ben Clarke, a climate researcher at Imperial College London who contributed to the report.
asserted
who → see → report
Climate scientists said that across the Himalayas rising temperatures are causing glaciers to retreat and permanently thawing ground that helps bind fractured mountain rock together.
asserted
that → say → rock
That means climate change can alter not only weather hazards such as heat and heavy rain but also the stability of the mountains themselves — threatening communities concentrated in narrow river valleys below.
asserted
change → mean → valleys
The analysis did not determine whether the collapse would have happened without climate change, caused mainly by the release of greenhouse gases when fuels like oil, gas and coal are burnt.
asserted
fuels → determine → oil
However, researchers concluded that warming intensified several processes that made the slope less stable over decades.
asserted
slope → conclude → decades
Global warming weakens high mountain slopes
The report found that one of the clearest changes directly linked to climate change was the rising elevation of the freezing threshold.
asserted
one → weaken → threshold
Warming had pushed the altitude at which ground remains consistently frozen upward by roughly 100 metres per decade, according to the report.
uncertain
ground → push → report
This exposes rock at increasingly high elevations to longer periods above freezing, thawing permafrost and causing cracks within the ice, ultimately weakening the rock face under the ice.
asserted
This → expose → ice
Jakob Steiner, a geoscientist at the University of Graz who has worked in the Himalayan region since 2006 but is not an author of Thursday’s report, said monitoring instruments around 5,000 metres now show that some rock and ground no longer remain frozen throughout the year.
asserted
rock → work → year
“This means that the ground that was sitting below ice for hundreds and thousands of years is now becoming exposed,” said Steiner.
asserted
Steiner → mean → years
The report also found that glacial retreat was another destabilising force.
asserted
retreat → find → ?
Glaciers in the region have been losing mass for decades at a rate equivalent to more than half a metre of thinning each year, the report found.
asserted
report → lose → thinning
The Langtang Lirung glacier, located in the region where the disaster occurred last month, has retreated about half a kilometre since the 1990s, exposing rock once covered by ice.
asserted
disaster → locate → ice
The Himalayan region contains the largest volume of snow and ice outside the polar regions.
asserted
region → contain → regions
More than 63,000 glaciers in the area feed at least 10 major Asian river systems and support the food, water, energy and livelihood security of billions of people.
asserted
glaciers → feed → people
However, various studies have found that around 78% of the glacier area, located between 14,763 and 19,685 feet above sea level, is highly exposed to warming.
asserted
% → find → warming
United Nations reports have found that between 2000 and 2019, glaciers lost 267 billion tonnes of ice per year, roughly equivalent to the mass of 46,500 Great Pyramids of Giza.
asserted
glaciers → find → Giza
As glaciers shrink, they can remove pressure that helped support adjoining rock walls while producing additional meltwater.
asserted
that → shrink → meltwater
According to the analysis, the weeks before the 26 August collapse were also unusually warm.
uncertain
weeks → accord → collapse
July and August 2026 were the warmest such months recorded locally.
asserted
July → record → ?
“Other than the potential geological factors like earthquakes that are weakening the bedrock, all these other factors are made worse by human-induced climate change,” said Friederike Otto, climate scientist at Imperial College London and one of the report’s authors.
asserted
Otto → weaken → authors
The Aporia
