Global irrigation has expanded nearly fivefold in the past century, increasing from approximately 500 km³/year in the early 1900s to between 2,200 and 3,000 km³/year today. This expansion has been particularly pronounced in Asia, accounting for roughly 85% of today’s global irrigation withdrawals. As one of the most impactful land management practices, irrigation significantly influences regional climate by altering precipitation patterns and cooling surface air temperatures. These meteorological changes raise important questions about how irrigation-driven weather modifications might affect glaciers in High Mountain Asia (HMA). Our study examines the impact of irrigation expansion on glaciers in HMA. We utilize climate simulations from the Irrigation Impact Model Intercomparison Project (IRRMIP). IRRMIP provides historical climate data (1901–2014) under two scenarios: (1) the Irr-scenario, reflecting real-world irrigation trends, and (2) the NoIrr-scenario, where irrigation remains limited to early 20th-century levels. The se scenarios are used as input for the Open Global Glacier Model (OGGM) to assess the effects of irrigation expansion-induced climate changes on glaciers. Our results indicate that irrigation expansion has had an important role in moderating glacier changes in HMA. Without irrigation expansion, glacier volume loss over the 1985-2014 period would have been considerably greater compared to the real-world case with irrigation expansion. These outcomes highlight the buffering effect of irrigation, which partially offsets climate-induced glacier retreat, and underscores the interconnected impacts of human land management and cryospheric systems.