How Climbers Are Adding Heat to the World’s Highest Glacier
News Desk
Kathmandu:
Everest is known as the ultimate symbol of a frozen, untouched wilderness. But beneath its snow-covered peaks, human activity is creating an unexpected source of heat. As thousands of climbers, guides and workers gather at Base Camp each year, the fuel they burn, and even the waste they leave behind, may be contributing to the melting of the Khumbu Glacier.
But new research suggests that the thousands of people who travel to Everest each year are leaving behind more than footprints.
Their fuel, waste and even urine may be contributing to the melting of the glaciers beneath the world’s highest mountain.
A study published in Regional Environmental Change has examined the human impact on the Khumbu Glacier around Everest Base Camp and estimated that heat generated by fuel consumption and human activity could be responsible for melting around 2,500 tonnes of ice and glacier each year.
The finding highlights an unusual environmental paradox: people are gathering on a glacier that is already under severe pressure from climate change, and their presence may be adding to the heat.
When a glacier becomes a tourist village
During Everest’s peak climbing season, Base Camp can resemble a temporary high-altitude settlement rather than an isolated wilderness.
Thousands of climbers, guides, porters and support workers converge on the area. Modern facilities have become part of the experience, including cafés serving espresso, large-screen televisions, high-speed internet, hot showers and heated tents.
Keeping this temporary community functioning requires considerable energy.
Researchers examining activity during the 2023 climbing season found that, over just 50 days, the camp used approximately 824 LPG cylinders, 18,935 litres of kerosene and 5,130 litres of petrol for cooking, heating and electricity.
That fuel consumption produced substantial amounts of heat in an environment where even small changes in temperature can affect fragile ice.
The surprising role of human urine
Perhaps the strangest part of the study concerns something climbers normally would not associate with glacier loss: urine.
At high altitude, climbers and guides need to drink large quantities of water to reduce the risk of dehydration. As a result, the population at Base Camp produces an estimated 6,000 litres of urine every day during the busy season.
Unlike solid waste, which is collected and transported away from Everest, much of this liquid waste is absorbed directly into the glacier.
Researchers estimated that the heat associated with human urine could contribute to the melting of roughly 154 tonnes of ice during a single climbing season.
The calculation illustrates how seemingly insignificant individual actions can become environmentally significant when multiplied by thousands of people in an extremely sensitive ecosystem.
How much ice is that?
The researchers estimated total heat released by fuel use and human urine at about 849,174 megajoules.
They calculated that this amount of energy could melt approximately 2,492 tonnes of glacier ice.
To put the figure into perspective, that quantity of melted ice would produce roughly enough water to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool, equivalent to around 83 tanker trucks or approximately 16,700 ordinary bathtubs.
The researchers also noted that, depending on the margin of error in the calculations, the estimated amount could be as high as about 3,020 tonnes.
The numbers are striking not because human activity has replaced climate change as the main driver of glacier loss, it has not, but because they demonstrate the additional pressure created by concentrating thousands of people on an already vulnerable glacier.
Everest is warming from above and below
The study also examined satellite observations to investigate temperature changes around the base camp.
Researchers analyzed Landsat satellite imagery covering the period from 1991 to 2023 and found that surface temperatures around the camp increased by an average of approximately 0.28 degrees Celsius per year.
That rate was nearly twice the increase recorded in the nearby Khumbu Glacier, according to the researchers.
The difference raises questions about the influence of local human activity alongside broader regional warming.
The study’s research team, which included Kim Lal Gautam, a senior official at Nepal’s Department of Land Management, cautioned that the calculations may actually underestimate the total human contribution.
Several sources of heat were not included, including helicopter flights, the body heat of climbers and the heat generated by yaks used to transport supplies.
A glacier under pressure
The Khumbu Glacier is already part of a much larger climate story.
Rising global temperatures are accelerating glacier loss across the Himalayas, threatening not only iconic landscapes but also water systems on which millions of people depend.
Against that backdrop, Everest Base Camp presents a difficult environmental dilemma.
The mountain has become a major international tourism destination, generating income for guides, communities and Nepal’s wider economy. Yet the infrastructure required to accommodate visitors is increasingly concentrated in an environment that is itself disappearing.
The researchers stress that climate change remains the dominant cause of Everest’s glacier melting. Human activity at Base Camp is a comparatively local factor.
But the study raises an important question: if a glacier is already retreating rapidly, should thousands of people continue living temporarily on it every year?
Should Everest Base Camp move?
The researchers argue that the findings could strengthen the case for a long-term relocation of Everest Base Camp to a safer area closer to permanent human settlements and away from the most vulnerable glacier zones.
Such a move would not stop climate-driven melting.
But it could reduce the direct environmental pressure created by fuel consumption, waste, transport and the concentration of thousands of people on the ice.
Everest may remain the world’s ultimate symbol of human endurance. Yet the new research presents an uncomfortable irony.
The higher people climb to experience one of Earth’s last great frozen landscapes, the more they may be contributing, however modestly, to the disappearance of that frozen world.
