In northern India’s Himalayas, flowers and fruits are in full bloom. But their colours and fragrances are not only bringing joy. Rather, this bloom is being viewed as a warning of mounting climate stress as rising temperatures push seasons away faster.
Year on year, the average snowfall has plummeted in these once white-covered mountains, leaving them bare and rocky in many places. What little snow there is melts more quickly and when spring arrives there is less runoff to feed water systems. Meanwhile the mountains are losing the snow and ice holding them together and rockfalls, landslides and bursting glacial lakes have become more common.1
