Old spy images show just how fast ice is melting from the glaciers in the Himalayas

Climate Intelligence Agency CIA

Picture 3 million Olympic-size swimming pools full of water.

That's how much ice melts from glaciers in the Himalayas each year, a new study suggests, and climate change is the primary cause.

Even more concerning is that the ice melt has doubled in recent years: Himalayan glaciers have been losing the equivalent of more than a foot and half of ice each year since 2000 – which is double the amount of melting that took place from 1975 to 2000.

“This is the clearest picture yet of how fast Himalayan glaciers are melting over this time interval and why,” said study lead author Joshua Maurer, a Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

Overall, the Asian mountain range, which includes Mount Everest, has been losing ice at a rate of about 1% a year since 2000.

The big melt: Global warming predicted to melt massive Himalayan glaciers, disrupt food production

The melting also threatens the water supplies for hundreds of millions of people downstream who rely on it for hydropower, agriculture and drinking, across a large portion of Asia, said study co-author Jorg Schaefer, a climate geochemistry professor at Columbia.

“Disaster is in the making here,” Schaefer said.

Scientists used recently declassified Cold-War-era 3D satellite images to track the glacial retreat back to the mid-1970s. By analyzing 650 Himalayan glaciers, the researchers estimate that, of the region’s total ice mass present in 1975, 87% remained in 2000, and 72% remained in 2016.

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