Snow and Ice Cover Change in the Earth's Third Pole: Implications for Future Water Resources

The Tibetan Plateau, Earth's "Third Pole," holds critical glacial water reserves that sustain billions of people across Asia. Climate change drives widespread glacier retreat across the region, but melt rates vary sharply by location, creating a need for fine-scale local monitoring to support adaptive water management. This study quantifies annual late-summer changes in snow and ice cover in a 100 × 125 mile central Himalayan study area near Mount Everest, using Landsat 8 satellite imagery processed in Google Earth Engine with the Normalized Difference Snow Index. Year-to-year changes were measured via image subtraction for 13 intervals from 2013 to 2026, and linear regression with a t-test was used to evaluate long-term trends. Results show net annual snow and ice loss across all 13 year-to-year intervals, although the magnitude of loss varies widely from year to year. A slight negative trend in annual loss was not statistically significant (p = 0.458), indicating no clear statistically significant long-term change in the annual loss trend over the study period. These local findings complement regional assessments and support targeted water resource planning for communities dependent on Third Pole meltwater.