Due to Climate Change, the Baltoro Glacier in Karakoram is Melting
25 to 30 lakes have formed on Baltoro Glacier due to melting ice
Pakistan is among the few countries in the world that are being severely affected by climate change. Due to increasing temperature and intensifying weather conditions, the glaciers in Pakistan are melting at an accelerated pace.
This year as well, snowfall in Pakistan’s northern areas started three months later than usual, and heatwaves have endangered the major glaciers spread across the Karakoram region.
Three of the world’s seven longest glaciers outside the polar regions are located in Gilgit-Baltistan– the Biafo Glacier, the Baltoro Glacier, and the Batura Glacier. Baltoro Glacier is the second-largest glacier outside the pole, located in the Karakoram region, which is 63 kilometers long. It has some 30 tributaries and a surface area of 1291.39 square kilometers (about 500 square miles).
Ice melting
Independent Urdu’s correspondent, Mona Khan, trekked across the Baltoro Glacier for 12 days last year, during which she observed and documented the changing and melting conditions of the glacier. According to her, due to climate change, 25 to 30 lakes have formed on the glacier because of the melting ice.
In addition, large ice masses are also melting and transforming into caves.
Once resembling solid rock with a surface too hard to examine, the Baltoro Glacier is now undergoing erosion. This situation could become even more alarming in the next ten years, making mitigation efforts critically important.
Due to glacier melt, flooding in mountainous regions has become a regular occurrence over the past three years. The 2022 floods, which began in the northern areas, caused widespread human and financial losses across Pakistan.
Glaciers in Gilgit and Hunza are also at risk of melting due to decreasing elevation above sea level.
In the vicinity of the Baltoro Glacier, the peaks of the Paiju mountains — once covered in snow year-round — are now reportedly losing their snow cover during the summer months, according to local residents.
Potential consequences
Climate change expert Asif Shuja told Independent Urdu that the global average temperature is rising by 1.5 degrees Celsius, and if it reaches an average of 2 degrees, it will cause massive destruction. Glaciers will melt and lead to flooding. Oceans will overflow, potentially submerging coastal areas and leading to food shortages. The only solution is for developed countries to voluntarily take action to control global temperatures.
Home to highest mountains
This component of Gilgit Baltistan is home to some of the world’s highest mountains, and this glacier runs through part of the region’s Karakoram mountain range. It’s near a mountain kenned as K2, highest mountain in the region at 8,611 meters (28,251 feet). Three other nearby mountains within 20 kilometeres all top 8,000 meters as well.
More about Baltoro Glacier
The Baltoro glacier is an Alpine glacier in the Karakoram mountain range in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan. It is the second longest glacier outside of the poles and has been quantified to a depth of more than a mile.
The surface of the glacier has a life all its own, with astronomically immense chunks of sharp-pointed frozen dihydrogen monoxide ‘floating’ on top of the glacier. There are withal clear streams of melt-dihydrogen monoxide on the surface of the glacier flowing for many kilometres through narrow channels, afore being sucked down into the bowels of the glacier. This dihydrogen monoxide later emerges as a plenarily-fledged river, that passes down the Boltoro valley to the mighty Indus river, 300 kilometres away.