As Winter Warms, Olympic Athletes, Organizers Hunt for Elusive Snow. Future games will need to be held at higher altitudes, and spread over multiple venues in order to adapt to a changing climate, new research suggests.

Gus Schumacher, a member of the U.S. cross-country skiing team, left, competing in Planica, Slovenia, in March 2023.Credit...Maja Hitij/Getty Images

 

Two weeks less snow on average recorded in mountain areas since 1982

 

 By Eric Niiler

 

As an elite cross-country skier who grew up in Alaska, Gus Schumacher is used to training and racing in biting cold and driving snowstorms. But in recent years, Mr. Schumacher, who is preparing to compete in several events at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics next month in Italy, has been skiing through wet, mushy snow surrounded by barren hillsides.

“It’s entirely man-made snow and kind of brown on the sides,” Mr. Schumacher said about some of his recent competitions. “It’s not the nicest way to ski.”

After a warm and dry early winter in the Italian Alps, local officials now say this year’s outdoor venues have enough machine-made snow to last for the 19 days of competition.

But Olympic organizers say holding a winter sports extravaganza every four years is becoming less certain, and will require more flexibility to pull off, thanks to a warming planet.

 

“By the middle of the century, we will probably have around 10 to 12 countries to have a cold enough climate to host Olympic snow sports,” said Karl Stoss, chairman of the International Olympic Committee’s Future Host Commission, which decides which cities get the games.

By 2050, of the 93 cities deemed suitable to handle the logistics of holding both the Olympics and Paralympics, just four would be able to host the events without snow-making, according to a study published Wednesday. Those cities are Niseko, Japan; Terskol, Russia; and Val d’Isère and Courchevel in France.

“Climate change is altering the geography of where the Winter Olympics and Paralympics can be held,” said Daniel Scott, an author of the study in the journal Current Issues in Tourism and professor of geography and environmental management at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. “We see a shrinking and contraction of climate reliable locations.”

Athletes who compete in the Paralympics, which is held a few weeks later at the same location, are the most affected by a warming climate, according to the new study. That’s because warmer temperatures affect the snow surface and can create more difficult and potentially unsafe conditions for the four outdoor Paralympic events: downhill skiing, snowboarding, cross-country skiing and biathlon.

Since 1992, any city wanting to host the Winter Olympics must also bid to host the Paralympic Games. That schedule requires a longer window of cold temperatures, lasting from early February to mid-March

“Because there is a one-bid, one-city partnership, it basically means you are only as climate resilient as you are for the Paralympics,” Dr. Scott said.

A snow cannon fired artificial snow toward the site of Olympic snowboard and freestyle skiing events in Livigno, Italy, this month.Credit...Yara Nardi/Yara Nardi, via Reuters

 

 

Across the entire southern Alpine region, the average depth of winter snowfall has declined by more than 25 percent since 1980, according to a 2024 study of a century of snowfall records published in the International Journal of Climatology.

Lack of snow forced cancellation of seven of the first eight World Cup downhill skiing and snowboard competitions during the 2022-23 season, followed by 26 World Cup events in the 2023-24 season, according to the new study by Dr. Scott and colleagues.

Some coaches and athletes attribute higher crash and injury rates to warm temperatures and poor snow conditions at the 2014 Sochi Games in Russia. A 2022 survey of winter athletes and coaches from 20 countries found 90 percent worried that climate change was negatively affecting their sport.

Previous Winter Olympic venues such as Grenoble, France; Chamonix, France; Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany; and Sochi, Russia, would not be suitable as future host cities by 2050, according to a previous study by Dr. Scott. Projected snowfall would not be enough to make up for daily melting, and the finish line of the downhill ski run at each venue would not freeze overnight, making it unsafe, the study found.

A second group of previous host cities — Vancouver, Canada; Palisades Tahoe, Calif; Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina; and Oslo — would be “climatically risky.”

In their new findings, Dr. Scott and colleagues found that the 2030 winter games scheduled for several cities in the French Alps should have reliable conditions for both the Olympics and Paralympics. But for the following Games, scheduled for Salt Lake City, the risk of marginal snowfall and snow surface conditions is higher for the later Paralympics

The ski resorts of Park City and Deer Valley, Utah, which will host several events at the 2034 games, opened several weeks late last month and have experienced one of the worst early-season snowfalls in over 30 years. The entire Rocky Mountain region had its warmest year in 2025 since record-keeping began in 1895, while Utah eclipsed its 20th century average by 4.3 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Because of increasing global temperatures, I.O.C. officials are considering shifting events a month earlier, starting the Olympics in January and the Paralympics in February, according to Mr. Stoss.

Organizers are also discussing the possibility of having the two competitions at the same time in different locations to increase the likelihood of cold weather for all competitors.

Snow-making at ski resorts is common in North America, but has faced opposition by some environmental and conservation groups in Europe who say it drains local water supplies and can damage sensitive ecosystems.

As competitors and coaches prepare for the upcoming Olympics, the reality of warmer winters is beginning to sink in. Chris Hecker, a wax technician for the U.S. Cross Country Ski Team, said natural snow is becoming a rarity at elite races. His job is to wax the base of cross-country skis taking into account increasingly variable snow conditions.

“I always prefer artificial snow because it’s fast,” Mr. Hecker said. “That being said, natural snow always makes the surrounding scenes look a lot nicer when you’re skiing.”

The world has entered a new era of ‘water bankruptcy’ with irreversible consequences

 

Meyil sinkhole in Karapinar in the central Anatolian province of Konya, Turkey, on June 24, 2024. Sinkholes have increased in recent years due to drought and overuse of groundwater. Yasin Akgul/AFP/Getty Images

 By Laura Paddison

 

The world has entered “an era of global water bankruptcy” with irreversible consequences, according to a new United Nations report.

Regions across the world are afflicted by severe water problems: Kabul may be on course to be the first modern city to run out of water. Mexico City is sinking at a rate of around 20 inches a year as the vast aquifer beneath its streets is over-pumped. In the US Southwest, states are locked in a continual battle over the how to share the shrinking water of the drought-stricken Colorado River.

The global situation is so severe that terms like “water crisis” or “water stressed” fail to capture its magnitude, according to the report published Tuesday by the United Nations University and based on a study in the journal Water Resources. 

 

“If you keep calling this situation a crisis, you’re implying that it’s temporary. It’s a shock. We can mitigate it,” said Kaveh Madani, director of the UN University’s Institute for Water, Environment and Health, and the report’s author.

With bankruptcy, while it’s still vital to fix and mitigate where possible, “you also need to adapt to a new reality… to new conditions that are more restrictive than before,” he told CNN. 

A girl with canisters of water from a water truck, on September 17, 2025 in Kabul, Afghanistan. The city of six million people could run out water by 2030, some experts say.

 

The concept of water bankruptcy works like this: Nature provides income in the form of rain and snow, but the world is spending more than it receives — extracting from its rivers, lakes, wetlands and underground aquifers at a much faster rate than they are replenished, putting us in debt. Climate change-fueled heat and drought are compounding the problem, reducing available water.

The result is shrinking rivers and lakes, dried-up wetlands, declining aquifers, crumbling land and sinkholes, the creep of desertification, a dearth of snow and melting glaciers. 

 

The statistics in the report are stark: more than 50% of the planet’s large lakes have lost water since 1990, 70% of major aquifers are in long-term decline, an area of wetlands almost the size of the European Union has been erased over the past 50 years, and glaciers have shrunk 30% since 1970. Even in places where water systems are less strained, pollution is reducing the amount available for drinking.

“Many regions are living beyond their hydrological means” and it’s impossible now to return to conditions that used to exist, Madani said.

It brings human consequences: nearly 4 billion people face water scarcity for at least one month every year. 

Remnants of a boat sit on the dry bed of Lake Urmia in northwestern Iran on December 19, 2025. The lake has shrunk due to drought, river damming and extensive groundwater extraction. Morteza Aminoroayayi/Middle East Images/AFP/Getty Images

 

Yet, instead of recognizing the problem and adjusting consumption, water is taken for granted and “credit lines keep increasing,” Madani said.

He referred to cities like Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Tehran, where expansion and development have been encouraged, despite limited water supplies. “Everything looks right until it’s not,” and then it’s too late, Madani said.

Some regions are affected more severely, the report noted. The Middle East and North Africa grapple with high water stress and extreme climate vulnerability. 

 

Parts of South Asia are experiencing chronic declines in water due to groundwater-dependent farming and ballooning urban populations.

The US Southwest is another a hotspot, according to the report. Madani pointed to the Colorado River, where water sharing agreements are based on an environmental situation that no longer exists. Drought has shrunk the river, but it’s not a temporary crisis, he said, “it’s a permanent new condition, and we have less water than before.” 

The Hoover Dam along the Colorado River on March 14, 2025 in Boulder City, Nevada. Kevin Carter/Getty Images

 

The findings are alarming, but recognizing water bankruptcy can help countries move from short term emergency thinking to long-term strategies to reduce irreversible damage, Madani said.

The report calls for a series of actions, including transforming farming — by far the biggest global user of water — through shifting crops and more efficient irrigation; better water monitoring using AI and remote sensing; reducing pollution; and increasing protection for wetlands and groundwater. 

 

Water could also be a “bridge in a fragmented world,” as an issue able to transcend political differences, the report authors wrote. “We are seeing more and more countries appreciating the value of it and the importance of it, and that’s what makes me hopeful,” Madani said.

The report’s call to action “rightly centres on long-term recovery as opposed to firefighting water crises,” wrote Richard Allan, a climate science professor at the University of Reading, who was not involved in the research. Limiting the climate change will also be vital to ensuring enough water for people and ecosystems, he told CNN.

Jonathan Paul, associate professor in geoscience at Royal Holloway University, said the report “lays bare, in unambiguous terms, humankind’s mistreatment of water.” But he said the concept of global water bankruptcy is “overstated,” even if many areas are expressing acute water stress.

Madani wants the report to spur action. “By acknowledging the reality of water bankruptcy, we can finally make the hard choices that will protect people, economies, and ecosystems. The longer we delay, the deeper the deficit grows.”

Antarctic penguins have radically shifted their breeding season – seemingly in response to climate change. Changing temperatures may be behind change in behaviour, which experts fear threatens three species’ survival

Gentoo penguins, pictured at Neko Harbour in the Antarctic, have brought forward their breeding season most significantly. Photograph: Ignacio Juarez Martinez

by  Graeme Green

 

Penguins in Antarctica have radically shifted their breeding season, apparently as a response to climate change, research has found.

Dramatic shifts in behaviour were revealed by a decade-long study led by Penguin Watch at the University of Oxford and Oxford Brookes University, with some penguins’ breeding period moving forward by more than three weeks.

The changes threaten to disrupt penguins’ access to food, increasing concerns for their survival. “We are very concerned because these penguins are advancing their season so much, and penguins are now breeding earlier than in any known records,” said the report’s lead author, Dr Ignacio Juarez Martínez.

“The changes are happening so fast that the penguins could end up breeding at times when their prey is not available yet. This could result in a lack of food for the penguin chicks in the first weeks of their life, which could be fatal. Even if the penguins could match their prey’s behaviour, we can’t expect them to keep this pace up much longer.”

The researchers examined changes in the timing of penguin breeding between 2012 and 2022, specifically their “settlement” at a colony – the first date at which penguins continuously occupied a nesting zone. Three species – Adélie (Pygoscelis adeliae), chinstrap (P antarcticus) and gentoo (P papua) – were studied, with colony sizes ranging from a dozen nests up to hundreds of thousands of nests.

A chinstrap penguin with its chick. Photograph: Ignacio Juarez Martinez

The scientists gathered evidence from 77 time-lapse cameras positioned around 37 colonies in Antarctica and some sub-Antarctic islands. Every time a camera took a picture, it also recorded the air temperature.

The results, published on Tuesday in the Journal of Animal Ecology, show that the timing of the breeding season for all three species advanced at record rates.

Gentoo penguins showed the greatest change, with an average advance of 13 days over the decade and up to 24 days in some gentoo colonies. This represents the fastest change in phenology (timing of breeding) recorded in any bird, and possibly any vertebrate, to date. Adélie and chinstrap penguins also advanced their breeding by an average of 10 days.

Such drastic changes also threaten to increase competition between the region’s penguin species, with clear “winners” and “losers” expected.

“Gentoos are a more temperate species and are already benefiting from the milder conditions that climate change is bringing to Antarctica,” said Juarez. “They’re already expanding their colonies throughout the peninsula and growing their numbers in colonies that were already established, while Adélies and chinstraps are both declining throughout the Antarctic peninsula.

“A scenario of increased competition would only exacerbate this. With food, gentoos are foraging generalists, meaning they can switch from krill to fish, so they would be less affected in low-krill years, while the others are krill specialists.”

 

The shifting breeding periods could also result in the penguins fighting for space and nesting sites. “Part of the reason why we see the three species living together in the Antarctic peninsula is because of their traditionally staggered reproduction, with Adélies and chinstraps breeding first and gentoos breeding slightly later,” Juarez said.

The three have managed to share space and minimise competition also because of differences in hunting depths and sea-ice conditions. Increased competition for food, other resources and snow-free nesting space would make raising chicks more difficult. Juarez said: “We’ve already seen gentoos take nests that were previously occupied by Adélies or chinstraps.”

It is unclear what the specific mechanism is that is moving the penguins’ breeding dates forward – they could be prompted by warmer temperatures (as many animals and plants are), by the earlier breaking of the ice, the earlier melting of the snow, the earlier phytoplankton blooms or other factors.

Penguins play a key role in Antarctic food chains, including bringing nutrients from deep water up to the surface, which is vital to algae being able to complete their photosynthesis. Scientists are anxious that losing species will increase the risk of broad ecosystem collapse.

“Chinstrap and Adélie colonies are, unfortunately, in clear decline throughout the area and there’s no reason to believe this is going to reverse anytime soon,” said Juarez. “Emperor penguins also breed there and also look like they are going extinct. We want to preserve penguin diversity in Antarctica at all costs. The Antarctic ecosystem is a network with very few links – losing several species of penguins before the end of the century, as models predict, could be a fatal blow to its functioning and its resilience.”

Landscape beneath Antarctica's icy surface revealed in unprecedented detail. “[This study gives] us a better picture of what's going to happen in the future and how quickly ice in Antarctica will contribute to global sea-level rise,” agreed Fretwell.

 

Until now, a lot of what lay beneath Antarctica's icy surface had remained a mystery

by  

Mark Poynting,Climate researcherand

Erwan Rivault,Senior data designer

 

A new map has unmasked the landscape beneath Antarctica's ice in unprecedented detail, something scientists say could greatly enhance our understanding of the frozen white continent.

Researchers used satellite data and the physics of how Antarctica's glaciers move to work out what the continent might look like beneath the ice.

They found evidence of thousands of previously undiscovered hills and ridges, and say their maps of some of Antarctica's hidden mountain ranges are clearer than ever before.

While the maps are subject to uncertainties, the researchers believe the new details could shed light on how Antarctica will respond to climate change - and what that means for sea-level rise.

 

"It's like before you had a grainy pixel film camera, and now you've got a properly zoomed-in digital image of what's really going on," lead author Dr Helen Ockenden, a researcher at the University of Grenoble-Alpes, told BBC News.

Thanks to satellites, scientists have a good understanding of Antarctica's icy surface – but what lies beneath has remained more of a mystery.

In fact, more is known about the surface of some planets in our Solar System than much of Antarctica's "underbelly" – the topography beneath the ice sheet.

But researchers now have what they believe to be the most complete, detailed map of that underbelly ever made.

"I'm just so excited to look at that and just see the whole bed of Antarctica at once," said Prof Robert Bingham, a glaciologist at the University of Edinburgh who co-authored the study. "I think that's amazing."

 

Traditional measurements from the ground or air have used radar to "see" beneath the ice - which is up to three miles (4.8km) thick in places - often along individual survey lines or tracks.

But these tracks could be tens of kilometres apart - leaving scientists to fill in the gaps.

“If you imagined the Scottish Highlands or the European Alps were covered by ice and the only way to understand their shape was the occasional flight several kilometres apart, there's no way that you would see all these sharp mountains and valleys that we know to be there,” said Bingham.

So the researchers used a new approach, combining their knowledge of the ice surface from satellites and their understanding of how the ice moves from physics - and checking them against those previous tracks.

“It’s a little bit like if you're kayaking in a river, and there's rocks underneath the water, sometimes there's eddies in the surface, which can tell you about the rocks under the water,” explained Ockenden.

“And ice obviously flows very differently to water, but still, when the ice is flowing over a ridge or a hill in the bedrock […] that manifests in the topography of the surface, but also in the velocity as well.”

While we knew about Antarctica's major mountain ranges, the scientists' new approach has revealed tens of thousands of previously undiscovered hills and ridges, as well as greater details around some of those mountains and canyons buried under the ice.

"I think it's just really super interesting to look at all these new landscapes and see what's there," said Ockenden.

"It's like when you see a map of topography on Mars for the first time, and you're like, 'whoa, this is so interesting, this looks a bit like Scotland,' or 'this looks like nothing I've ever seen before'."

One intriguing discovery is a deep channel incised in Antarctica's bed in an area called the Maud Subglacial Basin.

The channel is on average 50m deep, 6km wide and runs for nearly 400km (about 250 miles) - roughly the distance from London to Newcastle as the crow flies.

 

The researchers’ new map is unlikely to be the final one. It relies on assumptions about exactly how ice flows which, like any method, comes with uncertainties.

And much remains to be discovered about the rocks and sediments that lie beneath the ice.

But other researchers agree that, combined with further surveys from the ground, air and space, the maps are a valuable step forward.

"This is a really useful product," said Dr Peter Fretwell, senior scientist at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, who was not involved in the new study but has been extensively involved in previous mapping.

"It gives us an opportunity to fill in the gaps between those surveys," he added.

A more detailed understanding of all of the ridges, hills, mountains and channels could improve computer models of how Antarctica might change in future, the researchers say.

That is because these landforms and features ultimately shape how fast the glaciers above move, and how quickly they can retreat in a warming climate.

And that is important because the future speed of melting in Antarctica is widely considered to be one of the biggest unknowns in climate science.

“[This study gives] us a better picture of what's going to happen in the future and how quickly ice in Antarctica will contribute to global sea-level rise,” agreed Fretwell.

The study is published in the academic journal, Science.

The western US is in a snow drought, raising fears for summer water supplies

Snowboarders and skiers stand at the summit of Keystone ski resort in Keystone, Colorado, on December 16, 2025. Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post/Getty Images

 By Andrew Freedman

 

Brad Riesenberg has worked in the winter sports industry for more than 20 years, and he’s never seen a winter with such paltry snowfall and mild temperatures as he has this season.

Riesenberg, who is an owner at Backcountry Snowmobiling in Park City, Utah, said customers have been canceling their tours due to a lack of snow. Snowmobiling requires a thick snowpack at lower elevations in order to be viable, Riesenberg pointed out.

“We’ve lost lots and lots of money and it’s been pretty tough,” he said. “This is up there with some of the worst [winters], if not the worst.” 

 

Utah is in a snow drought and it’s not alone: Much of the vast, mountainous West is missing its lifeblood — fueled by record-hot temperatures so far this winter. California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains, only recently pasted with heavy snow from atmospheric river storms, are the exception.

And while this is an immediate problem for businesses and active outdoors fans, experts are also worried about bigger implications in the near future.

If the trend continues, it could deepen the West’s long drought, aggravating already contentious negotiations about allocating water along the Colorado River. It could also heighten wildfire risks and reduce water supplies in other areas well beyond the Colorado River Basin.

While there is some snow in the Colorado Rockies, many observing stations that are part of the SNOTEL snow condition monitoring network show record to near-record low levels, below anything seen since the winter of 1980-81, when some of these stations were first installed, said Russ Schumacher, Colorado’s state climatologist. 

 

“There’s not really anywhere in Colorado that’s doing really well,” Schumacher said. Poor snowfall seasons have happened in the state before, but a “persistent ridge of high pressure” across the West has kept both cold air and snowstorms at bay, he said.

For example, Schumacher said the average temperature in Fort Collins, Colorado, during December blew away the previous record and was equal to the average temperature for the month of March. He said the warmth is dominating weather conversations in the region.

“You can’t not notice when December feels like March,” he said. 

Locations across the American West are experiencing the warmest — or one of the warmest — winters on record. This image covers temperatures between December 1, 2025 and January 7, 2026.

CNN Weather

 

Jon Meyer, Utah’s assistant state climatologist, said the rain events seen so far this winter and lack of mountain snows in the early to mid-winter are part of larger-scale climate shifts affecting the state — changes that could affect long-term economic prospects.

Salt Lake City and the nearby ski resorts are slated to host the Winter Olympics in 2034. Salt Lake City recorded its second-latest measurable snowfall on record this year, when a tenth of an inch fell on December 27.

“I think one area of concern, specifically here in Utah, is the risk of these kinds of years increasing,” Meyer said. “We look at the potential for the Olympics coming up and wanting to have pretty good snow conditions for the 2034 Winter Olympics, and years like this highlight the risk of how climate change is impacting snowpack in Utah and across the globe.”

Water worries are growing

The more immediate risk of poor snow conditions is the impact on water supplies this summer, particularly along the Colorado River but also more broadly across a large expanse of the West.

“Everyone is going to suffer from the lack of snowpack in the Rocky Mountains because that’s how this region gets its water,” Riesenberg said.

Water supply concerns grow with each passing day since the region is so dependent on spring snow runoff for its dry season water supplies, Schumacher said. He noted the long-term trends in the Colorado River Basin, with increasing water demand from a booming population at the same time conditions are getting progressively hotter and drier over time. 

Skiers ride up a chairlift at Deer Valley in Park City, Utah, on December 11, 2025.

Alex Goodlett/The New York Times/Redux

 

The Colorado River flows through the snowy landscape of Grand County, Colorado, in February 2022.

Matt McClain/The Washington Post/Getty Images

 

Conditions could turn around in time for a thicker snowpack to yield plenty of spring runoff. But in order to do so, and reach even average snowpack conditions by March, the region would have to see a consistent period of storminess and colder temperatures, lasting on the order of weeks to months, neither of which are currently in the forecast, Schumacher noted.

“The concerns are there for sure, because you don’t want to be sitting at a record low in January, but the end state is not locked in yet,” he said. “Another dry year doesn’t bode well for the Colorado River System.” 

 

Schumacher’s counterparts in Utah and Arizona are also warily eyeing medium-range weather forecasts for any signs of a change in the weather pattern that would signal an improvement in their water outlook as well.

Erinanne Saffell, the Arizona state climatologist, said Phoenix and Tucson had their hottest Decembers on record, and typically snowy places such as Flagstaff have also been unusually warm and dry. She acknowledged the poor start to the snow season but said there is still time to build up more snow cover. Although, like Schumacher, she noted it would take a significant weather pattern shift to avoid intensifying the region’s long-running drought.

“So we still have January, February and March to get through,” she said, noting that there has been a recent, multi-year trend toward building up a higher snowpack in March.

“We’ll just keep watching this.”

Himalayas bare and rocky after reduced winter snowfall, scientists warn

 

 

by Navin Singh Khadka Environment correspondent

 

 

Much less winter snow is falling on the Himalayas, leaving the mountains bare and rocky in many parts of the region in a season when they should be snow-clad, meteorologists have said.

They say most winters in the last five years have seen a drop compared to average snowfall between 1980 and 2020.

Rising temperature also means what little snow falls melts very quickly and some lower-elevation areas are also seeing more rain and less snow, which is at least in part due to global warming, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and other scientific reports.

Studies have also shown there is now what is known as "snow drought" during winter in many parts of the Himalayan region.

Accelerated melting of glaciers in the wake of global warming has long been a major crisis facing India's Himalayan states and other countries in the region. This dwindling snowfall during winter is making matters worse, experts have told the BBC.

They say that the reduction in ice and snow will not only change how the Himalayas look, it will also impact the lives of hundreds of millions of people and many ecosystems in the region.

As temperatures rise in spring, snow accumulated during winter melts and the runoff feeds river systems. This snowmelt is a crucial source for the region's rivers and streams, supplying water for drinking, irrigation and hydropower.

Apart from impacting the water supply, less winter precipitation - rainfall in the lowlands and snowfall on the mountains - also means the region risks being gutted by forest fires due to dry conditions, experts said.

They add that vanishing glaciers and declining snowfall destabilise mountains as they lose the ice and snow that act as cement to keep them intact. Disasters like rockfalls, landslides, glacial lakes bursting out and devastating debris flows are already becoming more common.

So, how serious is the drop in snowfall?

Meteorologists say central Himalayas have also seen significant decrease in winter snowfall leaving mountains bare and rocky

The Indian Meteorological Department recorded no precipitation - rainfall and snowfall - in almost all of northern India in December.

The weather department says there is a high possibility that many parts of northwest India, including Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh states, and the federally-administered territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, will see 86% less than long period average (LPA) rainfall and snowfall between January and March.

LPA is the rainfall or snow recorded over a region over 30 to 50 years and use its average to classify current weather as normal, excess or deficient.

According to the weather department, north India's LPA rainfall between 1971 and 2020 was 184.3 millimetre.

Meteorologists say the sharp drop in precipitation is not just a one-off thing.

"There is now strong evidence across different datasets that winter precipitation in the Himalayas is indeed decreasing," said Kieran Hunt, principal research fellow in tropical meteorology at University of Reading in the UK.

A study Hunt co-authored and published in 2025 has included four different datasets between 1980 and 2021, and they all show a decrease in precipitation in the western and part of the central Himalayas.

Using datasets from ERA-5 (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Reanalysis), Hemant Singh, a research fellow with the Indian Institute of Technology in Jammu, says snowfall in the north western Himalayas has decreased by 25% in the past five years compared to 40-year long-term average (1980-2020).

Women walk along a mountain path in Uttarakhand state

Meteorologists say Nepal, within which the central Himalayas is situated, is also seeing a significant drop in winter precipitation.

"Nepal has seen zero rainfall since October, and it seems the rest of this winter will remain largely dry. This has been the case more or less in all the winters in the last five years," says Binod Pokharel, associate professor of meteorology at Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu.

Meteorologists, however, also add that there have been heavy snowfalls during some winters in recent years, but these have been isolated, extreme events rather than the evenly distributed precipitation of past winters.

 

Another way scientists assess the decrease in snowfall is by measuring how much snow is accumulated on the mountains, and how much of that remains for a period of time on the ground without melting: known as snow-persistence.

The 2024-2025 winter saw a 23-year record low of nearly 24% below-normal snow persistence, according to a report by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD).

It said four of the past five winters between 2020 and 2025 saw below-normal snow persistence in the Hindu Kush Himalaya region.

"This is generally understood to be consistent with decreased winter precipitation anomalies and snowfall in a significant portion of the HKH (Hindu Kush Himalaya) region," said Sravan Shrestha, senior associate, remote sensing and geoinformation with ICIMOD.

A study Singh with the IIT in Jammu co-authored and published in 2025 shows that the Himalayan region is now increasingly seeing snow droughts – snow becoming significantly scarce – particularly between 3,000 and 6,000m elevations.

"With snowmelt contributing about a fourth of the total annual runoff of 12 major river basins in the region, on average, anomalies in seasonal snow persistence affect water security of nearly two billion people across these river basins," the ICIMOD snow update report warns.

Melting Himalayan glaciers pose long-term water scarcity risks, while reduced snowfall and faster snowmelt threaten near-term water supplies, experts warn.

Experts say dwindling snowfall will impact the lives of millions of people in the region

Most meteorologists cite weakening westerly disturbances – low-pressure systems from the Mediterranean carrying cold air – as a key reason for reduced rainfall and occasional snow during winter in northern India, Pakistan, and Nepal.

They say in the past, the westerly disturbances brought significant rain and snowfall during winter, which helped crops and replenished snow on the mountains.

Studies are mixed: some report changes in westerly disturbances, while others find no significant shift.

"However, we know that the change in winter precipitation must be related to westerly disturbances, since they are responsible for the majority of winter precipitation across the Himalayas," said Hunt.

"We think two things are happening here: westerly disturbances are becoming weaker, and with less certainty, tracking slightly further northward. Both of these inhibit their ability to pick up moisture from the Arabian Sea, resulting in weaker precipitation," he added.

The Indian weather department has labelled the westerly disturbance north India has experienced so far this winter as "feeble" because it could generate very nominal rainfall and snowfall.

Scientists may sooner or later find out what is behind the decrease in winter precipitation.

But what is already becoming clear is that the Himalayan region now faces a double trouble.

Just when it is rapidly losing its glaciers and icefields, it has also begun to get less snow. This combination, experts warn, will have huge consequences.

‘Profound impacts’: record ocean heat is intensifying climate disasters, data shows. Oceans absorb 90% of global heating, making them a stark indicator of the relentless march of the climate crisis

 

The extra heat makes hurricanes and typhoons more intense, causes heavier downpours of rain and greater flooding, and results in longer marine heatwaves. Photograph: Michael Probst/AP

by Damian Carrington Environment editor

 

 

The world’s oceans absorbed colossal amounts of heat in 2025, setting yet another new record and fuelling more extreme weather, scientists have reported.

More than 90% of the heat trapped by humanity’s carbon pollution is taken up by the oceans. This makes ocean heat one of the starkest indicators of the relentless march of the climate crisis, which will only end when emissions fall to zero. Almost every year since the start of the millennium has set a new ocean heat record.

This extra heat makes the hurricanes and typhoons hitting coastal communities more intense, causes heavier downpours of rain and greater flooding, and results in longer marine heatwaves, which decimate life in the seas. The rising heat is also a major driver of sea level rise via the thermal expansion of seawater, threatening billions of people.

 

Reliable ocean temperature measurements stretch back to the mid-20th century, but it is likely the oceans are at their hottest for at least 1,000 years and heating faster than at any time in the past 2,000 years.

The atmosphere is a smaller store of heat and more affected by natural climate variations such as the El Niño-La Niña cycle. The average surface air temperature in 2025 is expected to approximately tie with 2023 as the second-hottest year since records began in 1850, with 2024 being the hottest. Last year the planet moved into the cooler La Niña phase of the Pacific Ocean cycle.

“Each year the planet is warming – setting a new record has become a broken record,” said Prof John Abraham at the University of St Thomas in Minnesota, US, and part of the team that produced the new data.

“Global warming is ocean warming,” he said. “If you want to know how much the Earth has warmed or how fast we will warm into the future, the answer is in the oceans.”

The analysis, published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, used temperature data collected by a range of instruments across the oceans and collated by three independent teams. They used this data to determine the heat content of the top 2,000 metres of the oceans, where most of the heat is absorbed.

The amount of heat taken up by the ocean is colossal, equivalent to more than 200 times the total amount of electricity used by humans across the world. “Ocean warming continues to exert profound impacts on the Earth system,” the scientists concluded.

Ocean warming is not uniform, with some areas warming faster than others. In 2025, the hottest areas included the tropical and South Atlantic and North Pacific oceans, and the Southern Ocean. In the latter, which surrounds Antarctica, scientists are deeply concerned about a collapse in winter sea ice in recent years.

 

The North Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea are also getting warmer, as well as saltier, more acidic and less oxygenated owing to the climate crisis. This is causing “a deep-reaching ocean state change in, making the ocean ecosystems and the life they support more fragile”, the researchers said.

“As long as the Earth’s heat continues to increase, ocean heat content will continue to rise and records will continue to fall,” said Abraham. “The biggest climate uncertainty is what humans decide to do. Together, we can reduce emissions and help safeguard a future climate where humans can thrive.”