€10 million collaboration strengthens cryosphere monitoring, disaster risk forecasting and water security planning
The four-year India–European Union (EU) research initiative CryoSCOPE has completed its first year, reporting major scientific milestones in understanding cryospheric processes and their impacts on climate and water systems. Coordinated by the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) and jointly funded by the European Union, India’s Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) and Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI), the project brings together 20 partner institutions from nine countries with a total budget of around €10 million.
CryoSCOPE focuses on the interactions between ice, snow, air and water across some of the world’s most climate-sensitive regions. The Indian Himalayas have been designated as one of the project’s supersites, highlighting their strategic importance for climate science, disaster risk reduction and long-term water security. Recent events such as the 2023 glacial lake outburst flood in Sikkim and the 2021 Chamoli disaster in Uttarakhand have underscored how rapidly changing high-mountain environments can trigger severe downstream impacts.
Advanced Monitoring in the Himalayas
During its first year, CryoSCOPE scientists established a high-altitude supersite in the Chalong catchment, located above 3,300 metres. The site includes two fully equipped automatic weather stations with radiation and snow albedo sensors, three snow pluviometers, glacier lake and river discharge sensors, isotope sampling across hydrological fluxes, and two high-altitude time-lapse camera systems. These cameras record snow depth at hourly intervals, enabling precise tracking of daily and seasonal variations in weather, snow cover and meltwater dynamics.
The project is also assessing the role of air pollution, local wind systems and changing precipitation patterns in accelerating glacier melt in the Himalayas.
“These measurements allow us to directly constrain how atmospheric and land processes interact in high-mountain environments,” said Chandan Sarangi, Associate Professor at IIT Madras and Principal Investigator of the CryoSCOPE Indian Consortium. “By capturing observations at multiple elevations and high temporal resolution, we can significantly improve process models that translate climate signals into credible projections of regional water availability, cryosphere change and downstream hazard impacts.”
Integrating Technology and Climate Models
CryoSCOPE combines field observations, satellite remote sensing, advanced climate and Earth System Models, and machine learning analytics to decode complex interactions between the cryosphere, atmosphere and hydrosphere. The enhanced datasets generated through this integrated approach are expected to address long-standing gaps in climate models, which often under-represent high-altitude cryospheric processes.
Climate Risks and Policy Relevance
Scientists involved in the project warn that rapid shifts in Himalayan climate patterns, including changes in Western Disturbances, are altering precipitation timing and intensity. These shifts have direct implications for snowfall, river runoff, landslide risk and the stability of glacier-fed water systems across the region. Broader assessments also indicate that shrinking snow and ice cover in the Hindu Kush–Himalayan region threatens water supplies critical for agriculture, hydropower and millions of downstream communities.
According to the project team, CryoSCOPE’s integrated data strategy is essential to reducing uncertainties in climate and water resource projections. Robust, high-altitude measurements are expected to support more effective policy planning, early warning systems and climate adaptation strategies in one of the world’s most vulnerable mountain regions.
As CryoSCOPE enters its second year, researchers say the project is well-positioned to deliver actionable science that links Himalayan cryosphere dynamics with regional climate resilience and sustainable water management.