According to a study, the landscape around Mount Everest could significantly change by the end of this century. The study has been published in the journal The Cryosphere. The Everest region of Nepal could melt to a large extent with increasing temperatures.

According to Joseph Shea, a glacier hydrologist at the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development in Nepal and lead author of the new report, it wasn’t expected that glaciers will melt at such large scale and the numbers are quite alarming.

It was found by Dr. Shea and his colleagues that moderate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions could lead to a 70% loss of glaciers around Mount Everest. And when it comes to a business-as-usual scenario, where emissions remain at the same levels, it could lead to a 99% percent loss.

Dr. Shea and his colleagues made use of a computer model for glacier melt, accumulation and redistribution, in order to find out the results. The model was customized by them with data on measurements from the field and remote-sensing observations, temperature and precipitation collected over 50 years from the Dudh Koshi basin. This basin consists of Mount Everest and many of the world’s other highest mountains.

According to Shea, “The signal of future glacier change in the region is clear: continued and possibly accelerated mass loss from glaciers is likely, given the projected increase in temperatures”.

The model considered how much mass of glaciers is from snowfall; they also took into account the way the mass is redistributed by recurrent downward movement. The model was applied to eight future climate scenarios.