We find evidence that black soot aerosols deposited on Tibetan glaciers have been a significant contributing factor to observed rapid glacier retreat. Reduced black soot emissions, in addition to reduced greenhouse gases, may be required to avoid demise of Himalayan glaciers and retain the benefits of glaciers for seasonal fresh water supplies.

Original Source

We find evidence that black soot aerosols deposited on Tibetan
glaciers have been a significant contributing factor to observed
rapid glacier retreat. Reduced black soot emissions, in addition to reduced greenhouse gases, may be required to avoid demise of
Himalayan glaciers and retain the benefits of glaciers for seasonal fresh water supplies.

As scientists worry about the prospect of a catastrophic flood from Lake Sarez in the Pamir Mountains, agricultural communities on the plains below face a very different problem. This arid region in Central Asia has inherited a set of resource blunders made decades ago by the Soviet Union. And since the Soviet collapse in the 1990s, competition for fresh water has increased.

Lake Sarez was born nearly a century ago, when a mountainside in Tajikistan crumbled during a magnitude-7.4 earthquake. The 567-meter-high landslide blocked an alpine river, forming the world's tallest dam. Since then, the valley behind it has filled with 17 billion cubic meters of snow and glacier melt.