The meltwater that farmers need to irrigate their newly sown crops used to arrive in March or April. Now it does not come until June.

As the climate warms, glaciers shrink.

That is what, for the past decade or so, he has been doing.

Most of the lower-lying glaciers in the area they inhabit have disappeared.

He noticed that a stream in his garden had frozen under the shade of a poplar grove, though elsewhere it flowed freely, he realized that the way to build a glacier to slow water's flow and shield it from the sun, and that is what he and his team of engineers are now doing.

That is a problem for those who rely on meltwater from them to irrigate their crops: farmers living in the valleys in Jammu and Kashmir, for example.

Chewang Norphel, a retired civil engineer who lives in the area, thinks he has the answer: if the natural glaciers have gone, why not build artificial ones?

They have diverted several streams in the worst-affected areas into canals. As the spring thaw sets in and the canals fill up, this overspill freezes into a layer of ice.

So far, Mr. Norphel and his team have built a dozen artificial glaciers in this way.

And as the process repeats itself over the ensuing months, these ice sheets stack up and get thicker.

Meltwater from these glaciers helps sustain the livelihood of thousands of farmers. Thank you.

The largest of them is a kilometer and a half long and two meters thick.