Climate Change Melting Kashmir Glaciers

The pace of ice-melt at the Indian glaciers in Kashmir is happening at an alarming rate, according to scientists.  As a result, crucial water supplies drawn on by thousands of local residents could be imperilled.  The issue is one covered in a new study, in which the scientists link the melting ice to the effects of climate change – namely temperature rises. 

The study was carried out over a period of three years by a group of researchers including associated professor Shakil Ramsoo.  He described the speed at which the ice in Kashmir was melting as “alarming”. 

The largest glacier in the Indian-owned area of Kashmir, Kolahoi, has reduced by approximately five per cent since the late 1960s, taking it from around 13 square miles to around 11-and-a-half square miles in less than half a century. 

The Kolahoi Glacier feeds more water into the Jhelum River –Kashmir’s largest – than any other source.

Impact of Climate Change on Kashmir

In 2008, international aid organisation ActionAid drew attention to the impact of climate change on Kashmir.  Global warming, it said, was having an effect on levels of rainfall and snowfall, and local food manufacture was suffering as a result. 

A separate study carried out by the UN’s Environment Programme and World Glacier Monitoring Service three years ago highlighted how –across the world – the rate at which glaciers in mountainous regions were melting had doubled in just a few years.  During the year in which this study was issued – 2006 – unprecedented ice losses were recorded at a number of locations.

Climate Change and Glaciers

In August 2008, Jairam Ramesh – the Indian Environment Minister – urged for concrete scientific data to back up the idea of a link between climate change and glaciers melting.  He conceded that some parts of the Himalayas were decreasing in size, but stated this was not the case everywhere in the region – the opposite was true, in fact. 

Ramsoo asserted in the latest study that “other small Kashmir glaciers are also shrinking and the main reason is that the winter temperature in Kashmir is rising.”  As far as climate change analysts are concerned, this could spell disaster for people living in the area for whom glaciers represent the sole available source of water.