Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Feature
  • Published:

Storing frozen water to adapt to climate change

Nature Climate Change volume 12, pages 115–117 (2022)Cite this article

Subjects

An Author Correction to this article was published on 07 April 2022

This article has been updated

Man-made ice towers provide water during the growing season in the high-elevation desert in the Himalayas to buffer effects of climate change. Local and international science partnerships are now working to develop technologies to make these ice stupas more efficient.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: An ice stupa in Ladakh, India, forms before the winter season.

Suryanarayanan Balasubramanian.

Fig. 2: Volume of ice stupa over the course of a year.

Johannes Oerlemans.

Change history

References

  1. Nüsser, M. et al. Reg. Environ. Change 19, 1327–1337 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Shafiq, M. U. et al. J. Climatol. Weather Forecasting 4, 165 (2016).

    Google Scholar 

  3. Nüsser, M., Dame, J., Kraus, B., Baghel, R. & Schmidt, S. Reg. Environ. Change 19, 1327–1337 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Leh Ladakh Population Census 2011 - 2021: Leh Ladakh Municipal Committee City Population Census 2011-2021 Jammu and Kashmir (Census Organization of India, 2021); https://www.census2011.co.in/data/town/800047-leh-ladakh-jammu-and-kashmir.html

  5. Oerlemans, J. et al. Cryosphere 15, 3007–3012 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Balasubramanian, S. et al. Front. Earth Sci. 9, https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2021.771342 (2022).

  7. Schmidt, S. & Nüsser, M. Geosciences 7, 27 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Brombierstäudl, D., Schmidt, S. & Nüsser, M. Sci. Total Environ. 780, 146604 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Maheshwary, S. et al. In Proc. IASS Annual Symposium 2019 - Structural Membranes 2019: Form and Force (eds Lázaro, C. et al.) (International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures 2019).

  10. Tveiten, I. N. Glacier Growing - A Local Response to Water Scarcity Baltistan and Gilgit, Pakistan. MSc thesis, Norwegian Univ. of Life Science (2007).

  11. Faraz, S. The glacier ‘marriages’ in Pakistan’s high Himalayas. The Third Pole (3 June 2020); https://www.thethirdpole.net/en/climate/the-glacier-marriages-in-pakistans-high-himalayas/

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Journalist, Washington, DC, USA

    Lisa Palmer

Authors
  1. Lisa Palmer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lisa Palmer.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The author declares no competing interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Palmer, L. Storing frozen water to adapt to climate change. Nat. Clim. Chang. 12, 115–117 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01260-x

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01260-x

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing Anthropocene

Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Anthropocene newsletter — what matters in anthropocene research, free to your inbox weekly.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing: Anthropocene