Glaciers in Asia are unusually bloated

Glaciers around the world are melting, shrinking and even disappearing completely. But in the Karakoram mountains of Asia, the home of K2 - the second highest mountain on Earth, glaciers are not melting, and even some of them are expanding.

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Currently, scientists have discovered the cause for the stability of the mysterious glacier. Although the amount of condensate is rising throughout the Himalayas, most of this moisture is reduced in the summer, except for Karakoram - where snow always dominates the landscape.

Karakoram region consists of a series of snowy peaks along the Indian, Pakistani and Chinese borders. It is part of the larger Himalayan mountain range, which is losing glaciers as the climate warms.

However, observations in the Karakoram region reveal, the flat rivers here are always stable, and the amount of snowfall is increasing, instead of decreasing as around. The strange phenomenon has sparked controversy among experts.

Sarah Kapnick, postdoctoral fellow in atmosphere and ocean at Princeton University (USA), and colleagues collected data on recent condensate and temperature data from the Pakistan Meteorological Department and the Other sources, including satellite data. They combined this information with climate models to track changes in the three regions of the Himalayas between 1861 and 2100: Karakoram region, central Himalayan region and southeast Himalayan region (including Tibetan Plateau).

The team found that a new model that simulates climate to a range of 2,500 square kilometers could combine the rain cycles and observed temperatures in Karakoram. A model, which is used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to simulate what will happen if the world continues to emit greenhouse gases at the current rate, has It is not possible to record typical seasonal cycles in Karakoram.

This is explained by the fact that, IPCC and other climate models have lower resolution, only recording climate change in the range of 44,100 km ² . The poorer resolution has been "smooth" of height differences, which are acceptable for the central and southeastern Himalayan region. However, the Karakoram region is more diverse than the other two regions, so the result is that IPCC and other models overestimate the region's warmth.

Because the previous models overestimated Karakoram's temperature, they also underestimated the amount of snow in the region. This is the cause of the "unusual and mysterious" glacial increase in Karakoram, according to a new study report in Nature Geoscience.

As the Earth warms, the condensed water rises throughout the Himalayas. Due to the geographical conditions, Karakoram receives most of this extra moisture in the winter, when the west winds bring snow to the mountains. In contrast, central and southeast Himalayan regions receive most of their moisture from summer monsoon winds.

In Karakoram, snowfall is decreasing in the summer, but increases in winter. This is said to help glacier glaciers not shrink . Ms Kapnick's group also discovered that snow in Karakoram could be maintained until at least 2100.

According to experts, understanding snow in Karakoram and the rest of the Himalayas is important for efforts to map out regional changes due to climate change. In particular, the discovery also helps to predict the water volume and flood situation in the region. For example, because snow acts as a reservoir of water for the Himalayan people, so if ice and snow melt too quickly, they can cause flooding.

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