Icemania: What's going on with the Karacorum ice in Pakistan?

While Groelanda ice, Alaska, Norway, and the Andes, Antarctica and Himalaya lose volume year after year, Karacorum people grow at a rate of 11cm a year.

This phenomenon had saved scientists because of the inability to reach that land surrounded by frightening mountains in northern Pakistan, among them K2, which has an altitude of 8611m and is the second highest peak in the world.

Canadian geographer Kenneth Hewitt from the Wilfried-Laurier University visited the region several times in the 1990s and found that the ice was not only too much, but it also exceeded, according to his impressions in 2005, in a study called the “Anomalia of Karakorum”.

Although the idea was met with scepticism, images of the topographic relief taken from the ship “Run “and satellite “spot 5” has allowed authenticity. A subsequent study of Sarah Kapnick, the scientist for atmospheric and oceanographic sciences from the University of Princeton, published in the magazine “Nature Geoscience” provides an explanation for this particularity of the ice of this mountainous system located west of the Himalayas.

After analyzing the data of temperatures and rainfall in the line ranges marking the borders between China, Pakistan, India and Nepal-Karadhur, the central and southeastern Himalayas, Kapnick and its team established that more snowfall in Karakorum during the winter and not much during spring-stightows, the period in which snow falls in Himalayas.

These rainfall produced when temperatures are very low near the freezing point contributes to the accumulate of a large amount of solid and resistant ice.

According to Kapnic, if climate change continues with current trends, Karakorum will also be affected by this change. It should not be forgotten that the ices of this mountain together with those of the Himalayas are the main reserves of freshwater for millions in Asian lands. / world.al