Warming Likely Reason For Growth In Some Pakistan Glaciers - Geographic

[hatrack]

Some glaciers in Pakistan's Upper Indus River Basin appear to be growing, and a new study suggests that global warming is the cause.
The glacial growth bucks a global trend of shrinking ice fields (photos: melting glaciers) and may shed light on the regionally varying effects of Earth's changing climate.

Meteorological data compiled over the past century show that winter temperatures have been rising in parts of the Western Himalaya, Karakoram, and Hindu Kush mountain ranges (map of Pakistan). But the region's winter snowfall, which feeds the glaciers, has been increasing. And average summer temperatures, which melt snow and glaciers, have been dropping. "One of the surprising results we found was a downward trend in summer temperatures," said David Archer, study co-author and a hydrologist at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom.

"That seems to be at odds with what people would expect, given the news about glaciers melting in the Eastern Himalaya." (Read "Himalaya Ice-Melt Threat Monitored in Nepal" .)

The combination of reduced summer melt and more winter snowfall could account for glacial growth, according to work to be published by Archer and colleagues in an upcoming issue of the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate.

EDIT

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/09/060911-growing-glaciers.html

[Dead_Parrot]

1. I eagerly await...

... a seemingly endless supply of moronic op-eds about how this is proof that climate change is a myth perpetuated by lie-brul DUmmie hatracks.

[hatrack]

2. Damn! I didn't know my handle had been corrupted!!

Shucks, I'm speechless!

:toast: