First, let’s shift focus to the Kashmir valley, parts of Himachal and Uttarakhand.

The missing snow

On January 9, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah shared photos of himself from the picturesque valley of Gulmarg, a year apart. The lack of snow this year was stark. “I’ve never seen Gulmarg so dry in the winter… If we don’t get snow soon the summer is going to be miserable,” he said, amid the ongoing 40-day period called the Chillai Kalan when Kashmir faces its harshest winter.

This was followed by the Leh-Ladakh Meteorological Centre forecasting on January 10 that there would be no major snowfall till January 23.

But, the situation isn’t isolated to J&K and Ladakh.

Parts of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand are similarly facing a“large deficit winter snowfall”, said India Meteorological Department meteorologist Sonam Lotus. Lotus added that there was no forecast of snowfall till January 25.

Where it matters

For a person in the plains, the lack of snow would appear like a minor inconvenience, like rain playing spoilsport on a beach vacation. But for people residing in these snow-dependent regions, it is a matter of existence.

Winter precipitation in hill states is mainly in the form of snowfall, and sometimes hail. Normally, the first traces of snow begin in the first half of December, depending on how high the region is, coinciding with the first cold winds blowing in the plains, and then continue through most of January. But this winter has largely been dry, with even rain deceiving the region. December ended with a 79% rainfall deficit for J&K, 85% for Himachal Pradesh and 75% for Uttarakhand, according to IMD data.

January has been no different, with Uttarakhand only receiving 1% of the normal rainfall, and no precipitation in Himachal, J&K and Ladakh. Parts of these hill towns have been warmer than Delhi even. On January 9, Srinagar recorded a maximum of 14.2°C, which was 8.1°C above average, and on the same day Delhi recorded 13.4°C.

“Winter snowfall is extremely crucial for the Indus basin and for places like Kashmir, Jammu, Ladakh and Punjab and Haryana where a lot of snow accumulation in the glaciers that feed the Indus happens during the winters through the western disturbances… is crucial for the people who live on the upper stretches of these river basins, as winter snow becomes the sources of water for glaciers, but also for rejuvenating local springs, and providing irrigation water during summers,” said Aditi Mukherji, director, Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Impact Action Platform of the CGIAR.

Why it matters

This snowfall then turns into snowpacks on the higher reaches that melt and provide water for irrigation, drinking and power generation during the summer months. The snow cover also helps attract tourists and skiing enthusiasts and helps protect winter crops from frost, not to mention the albedo effect.

A lack of this snow could spell doom in a year the monsoon is expected to be affected by an El Niño.

“If [monsoon is] weak, then lack of winter snow will compound the effects of a poor monsoon and will affect river flows, hydropower generation, and irrigation as well as groundwater recharge. More so in North West India where most of our food production is,” Mukherji told HT in an email interview.

HT on January 15 reported how the water levels in the Bhakra reservoir were running seven feet lower than usual, triggering fears over a lack of supply for irrigation in the summer as winter ends largely dry. The reservoir feeds a network of canals that irrigate the critical agrarian states of Punjab and Haryana and feed the drinking water needs of a large part of northern India.

Why is it happening

So far, there is no conclusive link between climate change and the reduced snow. But as emissions caused in large part due to the burning of fossil fuels continue to rise, the temperature is simply too warm to sustain snow.

Studies have, however, established trends between rising temperatures, the lack of snow, and the duration of the so-called snow drought.

Mukherji first pointed to the weakening of Western disturbances.

A western disturbance is an extratropical storm that originates in the Mediterranean region. An area of reduced air pressure, this disturbance carries moisture from the Mediterranean and Caspian seas east, via the subtropical westerly jet stream. This brings rain and snow to Pakistan and northern India, which replenishes glaciers. These disturbances are therefore crucial for the region’s water security, farming and tourism.

A study, “The decline in western disturbance activity over Northern India in recent decades”, in 2023 reported a 43% decline in the frequency of “strong and extreme WDs” between 1980 and 2019.

A separate study, in 2019 also projected a 15% decrease in winter rainfall over northern India and Pakistan due to a decline in WD frequency and intensity.

“Overall, because the western disturbance has weakened, we can expect less and less winter snow, particularly over the Indus basin which depends quite substantially on winter snow,” Mukherji told HT. “Even more worryingly, we are seeing strengthening of western disturbance in summer months, bringing extreme rainfall events in early summer. Such extremes are our new normal.”

The role of global warming

In the West, Northern California’s snowpack sat at 38% of its average, Italy’s 45% below its average, and parts of Afghanistan were witnessing record lows.

In a study, “Evidence of human influence on Northern Hemisphere snow loss”, published in Nature last week, researchers saw a decline since 1981 in nearly half of the 169 Northern Hemisphere river basins analysed. In 31 of them, they detected a climate influence, with the US and Europe emerging as hotspots for disappearing snow.

The findings projected that as the world warms, snow-dependent regions will become more unstable as average winter temperatures exceed -8°C. Four-fifths of the Northern Hemisphere’s population is living in areas that have already passed this threshold, according to the study.

“You’re not going to see a steady decline, of having 100% snowpack, to 80% snowpack, to 70%,” Justin Mankin, associate professor in Dartmouth College’s Department of Geography and senior author of the new study, told Bloomberg. “It’s going to be these years of, essentially, no snow,” he said, in a warning of snow droughts.

A snow drought is a condition brought on by either a lack of winter precipitation or temperatures too warm for snow.

Additionally, a 1°C increase in temperature can reduce the amount of water stored in snowpacks in early spring by nearly 20%, separate research had said earlier.

Looking at the data

In satellite data from NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center for the snow-dependent regions of Afghanistan (the closest region to India that data is available for), a clear decline in the level of snow can be noticed.

While the average level of snow in the region for the first two weeks of January between 2001 and 2023 is 130.4 kg per sq metre, for January 2024 this drops to 96.4 kg per sq metre — the lowest in the period.

Eye on the future

“Climate change has meant overall higher temperatures throughout the year and impacted snowfall all over the world. We are seeing changes in the cryosphere globally and the change is almost irreversible as glacier ice accumulation takes centuries and once melted cannot be brought back quickly,” Mukherji said.

This cryosphere degradation would lead to consequences for the mountains too, as heavy rain replaces snowfall increasing the risk of landslides. This will worsen as snowmelt and heavy rain coincide.

Snowmelt also keeps the mountain soil moist for longer as it releases gradually over a long period rather than short bursts of rain, thus not only altering the plant growth cycle but also increasing the likelihood of wildfires.

Another, more long-term impact of lack of snow is the reduced albedo effect — the ability of a surface to reflect light. Put simply, white snow helps to keep the planet’s temperature down by reflecting light.

New snow is also vital for glaciers as ice only forms underneath if they are covered by snow all year round.

So while the planet tries to come to terms with having lived through the hottest year ever, what was once unimaginable might soon become inevitable.

Cause and Effect is a weekly column in which Tannu Jain picks climate news from around the globe, and analyses its impact