Human activity at Everest Base Camp is generating so much heat that it is having a direct detrimental effect on environmental stability. A new international study published in the scientific journal Regional Environmental Change, reveals shocking data: climbers and their mountain guides are literally melting the Khumbu Glacier with its urine.
To avoid dangerous dehydration at high altitudes, climbers consume huge amounts of water. This results in the collective excretion of over 6000 liters of urine per day in the camp area. While solid human waste is collected in containers and transported in an organized manner down the mountain, most of the urine is dumped directly onto the ice. With its natural body temperature of around 37°C, this fluid releases heat energy that scientists say is capable of melting nearly 154 tons of ice and snow in just one active climbing season.
Fuel burning complicates the situation
Despite the surprising focus on human urine, the study found that it accounts for about 6% of the anthropogenic heat input to the camp. The remaining 94% comes from fossil fuel combustion. During the 50-day spring season in 2023, nearly 1,600 tents used vast quantities of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), kerosene, and gasoline for cooking, floor heating, and electricity. In total, urine and fuels contributed to the melting of nearly 2500 tons of ice.
Satellite data on Landsat from 1991 to 2023 show that the surface temperature within Base Camp is increasing on average by 0.28°C per year — a pace that is twice as fast as that in other parts of the Khumbu glacier. The main driver of this process remains global climate change, but the local human footprint is accelerating the melting catastrophically. The lead author of the study, Khim Lal Gautam (Chief Geospatial Inspector of Nepal), and his team warn that the concentration of thousands of people in one place is unsustainable and recommend a long-term relocation of the Base Camp to more stable terrain outside the glacier.