Before The Last Glacier Melts

In recent weeks, we have been hearing the same sentence almost every day: “Rainfall has increased in Türkiye, but reservoirs are not filling.” The claim is often taken one step further and turned into the conclusion that “water must be poorly managed.” Although this interpretation may sound reasonable at first glance, it is actually a classic hydrological misunderstanding rooted in a misinterpretation of how natural systems work. Let us begin with the data. According to official figures from the State Hydraulic Works (DSİ), on December 15, 2024, Türkiye’s reservoirs held 39.2 billion cubic meters of active storage, corresponding to a filling rate of 41.6%. Following a severe drought, by December 15, 2025, stored water had dropped to 31.9 billion cubic meters, and the filling rate declined to 33.8%. In other words, the country entered the rainy season with a significant water deficit. Then the rains arrived. During the 2026 water year (October 1, 2025 – February 17, 2026), cumulative pr...

As the 2026 Winter Olympic Games begin in Milano–Cortina, it is time to lift our eyes from the medal competitions and look instead at the logistical and ecological wreckage behind the slopes. Back in 2014, the climate modeling work our team at iklimBU conducted during the Lillehammer 2022 candidacy process had already placed these cold realities—now largely ignored by the sports world—squarely on the table. The Winter Olympics increasingly resemble not a celebration of sport, but a logistical war against nature fought with technology — and one that is already lost in advance. Over the past half-century, the clear shortening of winter across the Northern Hemisphere and the melting of snowpacks in mountainous regions have steadily narrowed the geographical boundaries within which the Games can be organized, trapping us in a dangerous form of technological optimism. Artificial snow, embraced by Olympic committees and broadcasters to preserve the illusion of a white winter landscape, is i...