Record-Breaking Glacier Loss in Central Asia in 2025

Environmental Research, 30 April 2026

Central Asia’s glaciers experienced their most severe mass loss year on record in 2025, with nearly 2% of the region’s total glacier volume disappearing. About two-thirds of large glaciers in the region (around 4,000 in total) experienced their worst year of ice loss since measurements began. This extreme melt was driven mainly by unusually warm spring and summer conditions, an early start to the melting season, and less snowfall than usual. With snow disappearing earlier in the year, darker ice surfaces were exposed for longer periods, causing more sunlight to be absorbed and speeding up further melting in a feedback loop. Long-term records and reconstructions going back to the 1950s show that 2025 was far outside the range of normal year-to-year variability and falls within a broader trend of increasing glacier loss across the region.

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