Pamir Mountains in Tajikistan
An expedition last year to the Pamir Mountains in Tajikistan collected two ice samples from a glacier that, disconcertingly, appears to be increasing in size.
The disappearance of glaciers on inhabited continents is one of the most alarming indicators of anthropogenic climate change.
A new one, published in December in the magazine Nature Climate Changeestimates that we are lose around 1000 glaciers per yeara number that is expected to increase as we approach mid-century.
With each glacier lost, they also disappear vulnerable ecosystemsfresh water sources, tourist revenue and even a spiritual dimension.
Although this constant disappearance of glaciers is an overwhelming global trend, there is at least one region of the world where, for decades, this inevitable deglaciation seemed to reverse.
The high-altitude ice cap Kon-Chukurbashiin the Pamir Mountains, also known as the “Roof of the World“, located mainly in the Central Asian country of Tajikistan, lies at 5810 meters, or about 19,000 feet.
While the rest of the world’s glaciers melted into oblivion, this ice cap effectively increased in sizeand scientists want to understand this unexpected resilience.
Earlier this year, an international team of scientists traveled to the ice cap to collect two ice core samples at least 100 meters long, says .
The first core was sent to an underground sanctuary in Antarctica called Ice Memory Foundationa protected repository of climate information for centuries to come.
The other nucleus went to the Institute of Low Temperature Science at Hokkaido University in Sapporo, where Yoshinori Iizukaa professor at the university, will analyze the sample in an attempt to understand the anomaly of this particular ice cap.
“If we can understand the mechanism behind the increase in ice volume there, then we can apply it to all other glaciers in the world“, Iizuka told AFP. “Maybe that’s too ambitious a statement. But I hope our study ends up helping people.”
The mission originally planned to extract samples from the famous Glaciar Vanch-Yakhwhich was the glacier longest to survive outside the polar regions of the world, but the mission proved to be too difficult for helicopters to access the area.
However, the Mine-Chukurbashi is by no means second-rate, since the countless layers of compacted dust will provide scientists with up to 30,000 years of information about past atmospheric conditions, snowfall and temperature of one of the least studied mountain ranges in the world.
“We removed the last ice core, which was spectacular“, the glaciologist told AFP Evan Milesresearcher at the Swiss universities of Friborg and Zurich, who was part of the expedition. “Truly yellow icebecause it has so much sediment inside. What It’s a very good sign for us“.
Unfortunately, any data that may be extracted from the samples may reach too late for many glaciersincluding the Pamir region itself, note a .
Last year, one led by scientists at the Austrian Institute of Science and Technology and published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment revealed that the recent decline in snowfall in the Pamir region is undermining its legendary resilience.
Apparently, even the world’s last refuge for glaciers is at risk.
