Project Abstract
Climate and Cryosphere at PYRAMID Laboratory
The Third Pole hosts approximately 100,000 km² of glaciers, supplying water to over two billion people. However, the vital cryosphere is critically threatened by global warming. Despite its importance, the detailed mechanisms of climate change in these high-elevation environments remain poorly understood, largely due to the scarcity of long-term monitoring data.
In particular, processes such as glacier-climate interactions, glacier feedback on local temperature and precipitation trends require new insights. The CliC-Pyramid project aims to address these knowledge gaps. In this context, the Pyramid Laboratory (Mt Everest), with its longstanding tradition of excellence in high-elevation environmental monitoring, offers a unique opportunity to enhance our understanding of these mechanisms and better anticipate future changes in the Third Pole region and mountain environments.
Project Description
Himalayan glaciers have been consistently losing mass, with the rate of loss accelerating over the past five decades, even at the iconic Mt Everest. While rising air temperatures are widely recognized as the primary driver of glacier melt, the feedback of glaciers in modulating the local climate remains poorly understood. To date, scientific investigations have predominantly employed a unidirectional framework, interpreting glacial changes exclusively as a consequence of climatic forcing. The novelty of CliC-PYRAMID is to shift the research paradigm by specifically investigating the inverse relationship: how do glacial systems influence local climate trends?
In recent decades, a counterintuitive decrease in air temperature and precipitation has been observed at the Pyramid Laboratory (Mt Everest, Nepal), despite global warming. It had never been hypothesized before that glaciers may play an active role in modulating the local climate, specifically by decreasing both summer temperature and precipitation. This feedback mechanism could influence glacier melt rates, permafrost thawing, and local ecosystems. However, the extent and nature of these impacts remain largely unknown and therefore completely overlooked in glaciological and climatic modelling.
This type of glacier feedback on climate trends could potentially occur in other mountain ranges, depending on local climate regimes and the geomorphological characteristics of glaciers. The relaunch of the Pyramid Laboratory Mt Everest, Nepal), revitalizing the long-term, multidisciplinary monitoring program, represents a unique opportunity, not only for the Third Pole, but for high-elevation regions worldwide. Indeed, this project could allow for gaining deeper insights into mountain-valley air circulation, glacier-climate interactions, changes in precipitation and temperature patterns, in the context of global warming.
Objectives
Current research remains constrained by unidirectional frameworks that treat glaciers as passive climate indicators. While climatological data has historically served glaciological studies, the reciprocal influence of glacial systems on regional climate has been systematically overlooked. The CliC-PYRAMID project has the overarching scientific aim (AIM A0) of advancing understanding of critical processes as GLACIER-CLIMATE INTERACTIONS AND THEIR FEEDBACK MECHANISMS on local temperature and precipitation trends in the high-elevation regions of the Third Pole. In particular, the project aims to deepen knowledge in the following areas:
- Goal A1 To demonstrate that glaciers can be a source of daytime precipitation, i.e., to verify the convergence between down and upward air masses (coupling short-term simulations
- Goal A2 To understand the interconnection between the glacier/upper-atmosphere air exchange and daytime katabatic wind development, i.e., “the pump effect “of the glacier
- Goal A3 To understand how possible changes in the synoptic (regional monsoon regime) and local control (active role of glacier) can influence the climatic trends over these areas
Expected Results and Impacts
The project outcomes can be conceptually framed across four key dimensions: (i) data production, (ii) capacity building, (iii) knowledge advancement, and (iv) research proposal development.
- Data infrastructure, the project is committed to sustaining both existing and newly established long-term time series. All observational data will be systematically archived and disseminated, following the FAIR data principles: as an example, the recent paper on Pyramid data (Salerno et al., 2025).
- Human capital development, capacity building represents a fundamental project outcome through: (i) institutional engagement of local institutions, and (ii) hands-on technical training in environmental monitoring system installation and maintenance.
- Knowledge generation, this research will advance understanding of critical cryospheric processes, including glacier-climate interactions and their feedback mechanisms influencing local temperature and precipitation patterns across the Third Pole’s high-elevation regions.
- Research development, a comprehensive scientific strategy will be formulated and implemented to expand upon the thematic priorities of CliC-PYRAMID while reinforcing CNR’s leadership in Third Pole high-elevation global change studies.
Project team
Franco Salerno (Institute of Polar Science, ISP-CNR)
Working group: Angela Marinoni (ISAC-CNR) and Andrea Lami (IRSA-CNR), Raffaella Balestrini (IRSA-CNR), Nicolas Guyennon (IRSA-CNR) and Jacopo Gabrieli (ISP-CNR)