Trends of climate change in the upper Indus basin region, Pakistan: implications for cryosphere

1. Trends of climate change in the upper Indus
basin region, Pakistan: implications for
cryosphere
Waseem Khan (Masters Student)
Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences

2. CONTENTS
• Introduction
• Materials and methods
Data collection
• Study area
– Weather station Gilgit
– Weather station Skardu
• Data analysis
• Results
• Discussion
• Conclusions

3. Introduction
• Global climate is undergoing significant changes as a response
to increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the whole
atmosphere. The earth climate had experienced major shifts in
geological history, but the current climate change is
extraordinary and largely attributed to anthropogenic activities
during postindustrial era to meet the demands of growing
population for food and other life necessities (Mann and Jones
2003; Thorne et al. 2003).
• Pakistan is among the countries most vulnerable to ongoing
climate change (Pachauri 2009).

4. Introduction
• Runoff in the upper Indus basin depends on the
melting of seasonal snowpack, precipitations, and
glacier melting (Archer 2003).
• Goals of the study as follows:
1. How have climatic variables (MMT, OMT, MXT, RH,
and precipitation) changed since the mid-twentieth
century?
2. What is the effect of elevation on these variables?
3. Is the change in climatic variables fallow similar pattern
in the both mountain ranges?

5. Materials and methods
Data collection
• The data regarding various climatic variables of two weather
stations located in upper Indus basin (Fig) were kindly
provided by Pakistan Meteorological department Lahore for
the time period covering from 1953 to 2006.
• Various climatic variables, mean minimum (MMT), mean
maximum temperatures (MXT), mean monthly precipitation,
and morning (8:00 am) and evening (5:00 pm) relative
humidity (RH). The data regarding both MMT and MXT
were subsequently utilized for the calculation of overall mean
temperature (OMT) in the region.

6. Fig: The map of Pakistan showing the relative elevation and locations of the two weather
stations in upper Indus basin from where the climatic data were collected. The map was drawn
using open source software QGIS 3.1 available at https://www.qgis.org

7. Study Area
Weather station Gilgit
• The Gilgit (35° 55′ N and 74° 18′ E) is a small town, elevation
of 1460 m above sea level.
• Junction point of three mountain ranges Hindukush, Himalaya
and karakorum.
• There are some 40 glaciers located in this region. Some of the
important glaciers present in this area are Siachin, Concordia,
Gashabrum, and Rakaposhi to name a few (Armstrong 2010).
• There are four peaks greater than 8000 m including K2 situated
in the Pakistani part of Karakorum.
• There are four rivers: Khunjrab, Nagar, and Hunza rivers
discharge their water into the Gilgit River which finally meet
with Indus River near Jaglot.

8. Weather station Skardu
• The city of Skardu (35° 18′ 0″ N and 75° 37′ 0″ E) is
situated at the edge of Western Himalaya at an elevation
of 2250 m.
• The major glaciers: Naga Parbat, the ninth highest
mountain in the world Raikot, Rupal, Diamir, and Patro
glaciers.
• The major rivers of the area are Braldu, Shigar, and
Basha Basna which all drain their discharge to the river
Indus.

9. Data Analysis
• Long-term changes in climate were assessed by
dividing the whole 54-year data into two
temporal halves which consisted of time span
from 1953 to 1979 (first half) and from 1980 to
2006 (second half).
• determined the means of all the climatic
variables (MMT, MXT, OMT, precipitation,
morning and evening RHs) for each month for
the both temporal halves.

10. Results
• Changes in mean minimum temperature at both
weather stations

11. Changes in mean maximum temperature at
both weather stations

12. Overall mean temperature changes at both
weather stations

13. Mean precipitation changes at both weather
stations

14. Discussion
 significant reductions in MMTs monitored during
summer and fall seasons at both weather stations during the
later temporal half compared to the previous one.
MMTs were more at the weather station Gilgit than at
Skardu