The glacier-fed slopes of Mount Cilo in southeastern Turkey once held snow year-round. Now, in midsummer, the peaks are bare.

Local guide Kemal Ozdemir told Al Jazeera that visible glacier chunks floating downriver show just how fast the ice is melting. Locals say the melt season now stretches so long that it's hard to know when it even started.

What's happening?

Mount Cilo, near the Iraqi border, holds Turkey's second-largest glacier system. Nearly half of its ice cover has vanished in the last four decades, according to Van Yüzüncü Yıl University professor Onur Satir.

"The melting process is faster than we expected," he said, per Al Jazeera. Rising temperatures and shrinking ice are rapidly reshaping the terrain. In nearby Silopi, temperatures recently hit 122.9 degrees Fahrenheit.

New roads and more visitors are speeding up the thaw. Forty years of data from snowpack studies across the Northern Hemisphere show similar declines.

Why is glacier loss in Turkey concerning?

Cilo's glaciers supply rivers that irrigate crops and provide drinking water to communities below. Without glacial balance, rivers surge or dry up with little in between. That instability hits harvests first, then clean water access.

Residents near Hakkâri are seeing spring dry-up and summer pastures fade, while rapid melt has turned some trails dangerous. A block of ice broke off and swept away two hikers in 2023 — a grim sign that changes are happening at a speed that outpaces people's capacity to respond.

NASA research confirmed that human-caused pollution is making extreme heat events more frequent, severe, and longer — conditions speeding up melting. The United Nations warned that the planet's overheating also throws nature's balance off and can spread diseases.

Glaciers in Alaska's Juneau Icefield are also pulling back with similar impacts on ecosystems and nearby towns. Retreating glaciers in those regions and beyond are disrupting food and water supplies as well as public safety — all linked to long-term warming trends. Scientists have also identified a "grounding zone" process that accelerates ice loss in critical glaciers.

What's being done about it?

Turkey, which is increasingly being formatted as "Türkiye" in recent years, established a national park around Mount Cilo in 2020, but national policies still lag behind the scale of the crisis. Other regions are focusing on water management, flood alerts, and clean energy solutions.

Exploring critical environmental issues can help individuals understand the bigger picture and support policies that protect water resources. Even small local actions, such as advocating for watershed restoration or backing sustainable agriculture, can help slow the trends fueling glacier loss.

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