At an altitude of almost 4,000 metres in Kyrgyzstan, scientist Gulbara Omorova points to a pile of rock debris: “It used to be a glacier, but it has completely disappeared.” In Central Asia, where water is already in short supply, melting glaciers are threatening an entire region.
“Until it melted three or four years ago, it was a fairly large glacier, with snow even in the middle of summer,” the glaciologist told AFP in the north of the country, in the heart of the Tian-Shan mountains which stretch across the whole of Central Asia.
Glaciers act as crucial water towers for Central Asian food security, feeding rivers especially during months without rainfall.
But these vital reserves of fresh water are inevitably dwindling in this arid and landlocked region, thousands of kilometres from the nearest seas.
“We measure the melting everywhere with our beacons,” warns M.me Omorova.
“And the glaciers cannot regenerate because of the rise in temperatures,” continues the 35-year-old expert, who arrived after a six-hour walk at the highest scientific station in Central Asia, modest but crucial for the study – still insufficient – of glaciers.
A little further on, Goulbara Omorova shows the Adygene glacier, which is retreating “by around 16 metres each year, or more than 900 metres since the 1960s”.
In line with the regional trend, between 14 and 30% of the glaciers of the Tian-Shan and Pamir, the two main Central Asian mountain ranges, have melted over the last 60 years, the Eurasian Development Bank estimates in a report.
Insufficient means
The data collected by Mme Omorova are worrying, as 2024 will probably be the hottest year on record, according to forecasts from the European climate change observatory Copernicus.
“The melting is much more intense than in previous years,” continues the specialist, already noting a drop of several centimetres in the ice level.
But resources are insufficient in Kyrgyzstan, one of the poorest former Soviet republics.
“We lack measuring equipment, there is not enough money to transport everything to our observation station, where we do not even have electricity,” regrets M.me Omorova, calling for a law to protect glaciers.
Beneath his feet, the Adygene Glacier has already taken on a grayish color. Meltwater flows into a lake before hurtling down the mountain in a tumultuous torrent toward the capital, Bishkek.
Further down in the valley – at an altitude of 2,200 metres – the scientist brothers Erokhine, Sergei and Pavel, are busy working on the banks of the same torrent, which is potentially dangerous due to the accelerated melting.
“When the glaciers melt, glacial lakes are created. Water accumulates there and they can explode. This mass of water carries rocks with it, rushes into the valley and can reach the city,” summarizes the eldest, Sergei, 72, for AFP.
“Our task is to monitor the situation in the high mountains, to predict possible glacial lake outbursts, to draw up maps so that people and infrastructure do not end up in these dangerous areas,” he continues.
The youngest, Pavel, changes the battery of a sensor “installed about 50 centimeters above the water and which emits a radio signal in the event of a flood.”
Complex water sharing
On a regional scale, the complex distribution of water in Central Asia, thought of under the USSR but now obsolete, remains a thorny subject, despite better inter-state cooperation.
Countries blame each other for failing to meet their mutual water supply obligations, with the latent risk of conflict breaking out.
“In Central Asia, water resources are found in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan,” two countries with peaks of almost 7,500 meters and each with around 10,000 glaciers, explains Ms. Omorova.
“We share water with our downstream neighbors,” she continues, referring to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, water-hungry desert countries where three-quarters of the country’s 80 million or so Central Asians live.
And both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are multiplying initiatives to draw attention to the looming catastrophe. With some success, 2025 has been declared by the United Nations as the “year of glacier preservation”.
“If according to previous forecasts, the area of glaciers [d’Asie centrale] “While the climate will halve by 2050 and disappear completely by 2100, it could actually happen much faster,” Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov warned last year.
But Central Asian glaciers face another threat: a growing appetite for the region’s vast natural resources, such as rare earths and gold.
Their extraction in mountainous areas, with chemicals, contributes to the deposit of dust on the glaciers and accelerates their melting.