Climate Change Not Myth But Reality

Northern Areas of Pakistan are blessed with beauty, we often hear people quoting these beautiful areas as “Switzerland of Pakistan”, “Heaven on Earth”, but these words proved there reality when for the first time I visited Northern Pakistan. It is worth mentioning that Pakistan is dependent on frozen hydrological resources. Many rivers such as River Swat, Chitral, Gilgit, Hunza, Shigar, Shyok, Indus, Shingo, Astor, and Jhelum are fed by runoff generated by melting of SC of Northern areas.

Image by Aqsa kamran from Pixabay

Image by Abdullah Shakoor2 from Pixabay

This runoff supports agriculture. Agriculture of Pakistan is largely dependent on the snow melting phenomenon. Anomalies witnessed in glaciers and their melting patterns will have massive impact on hydrological resources because the country’s 70% of fresh water depends upon these frozen hydrological resources in the high mountains of Himalaya and Hindu Kush.

Image by Abdullah Shakoor2 from Pixabay

I started my trip on Monday Evening from Islamabad, reached Abbottabad to stay there for night, next morning our long journey started around 7:30 AM from Abbottabad, towards Manshera, scenic beauty of nearby places remind me of verse

“So which of the favors of your Lord would you deny?” (Sura e Rehman)

Image by Abdullah Shakoor from Pixabay

From Manshera we moved towards District Kohistan, we continued to drive till Basham and there after till “DASSU”, it was 8:30 PM, darkened night scary mountains, all forced us to search for hotel at “Dassu”, but all hotels were booked up due to student’s from side by villages were staying for their FSc exams.

We moved onwards with a target of reaching “Chillas”, but around 11 PM, we eventually had to stop at a place local name “SamrLala”, with a small hotel for spending night hours. Next morning we started our drive towards “Gilgit City” luckily we reached at “FCNA ARMY MESS GILGIT” by 2:30 PM. After a long drive of 6-700 KM approx. we took rest for 2-3 hours, and then started exploring Gilgit City, and waited for the next morning to start our next journey.

Next Morning we moved towards HUNZA, a beauty that can’t be explained, and further to ATTABAD LAKE, moving towards PASSU (PASSU GLACIER), and then towards BATURA GLACIER seeing all the way scenic mountains and breath taking “PASSU CONES”.

Figure 1 panoramic view at PASSU

Figure 2 Panoramic view at Batura Glacier

Figure 2B panoramic view at Attaabad Lake

Pakistan is rated as 12^th most prone to climate change, (Maple croft 2007). The catchment area of HKH in Northern Pakistan is nearly 128730.8 km². Considering Retreating of frozen hydrological resources, rate of glaciers reduction in the Himalayas is faster than other part of the world, if glaciers would reduce with current rate then it would disappear by the year 2035 (IPCC AR4 -Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).

(Figure below) (Cogley, 2009) supports global glacier reduction graphically.

Images from My Camera

Passu Glacier

Passu is a small village in Gilgit Baltistan, Passu Glacier is part of 2500 km long HKH glaciers starting from Namche Barwa (29° 37‟N, 95° 15‟E; 7756 m.a.s.l), Tibet, in the East, to Nanga Parbat (33° 15‟N, 74° 36‟E, 8126 m.a.s.l). Passu Glacier located in south side of Passu Village is a valley type glacier in Hunza Basin about 15km upstream of Ataabad Lake, having length of 26 km, and having ice reserves nearly 10.89 cu.km.

East-West extent of Passu Glacier is 74° 35‟ to 74° 52‟
North-South extent of Passu Glacier is 36° 27‟N to 36° 30‟E
Elevation range of Passu Glacier is 2685-7419 m

Fig 9: Representing Passu glacier study area

Figure 10 Retreating Glaciers Map

Images taken during travelling

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