Impact of climate change on glaciers and glacial runoff over the South Asia region including Pakistan

by Fahad Saeed

The economic life of Pakistan depends to a large extent on its agriculture, which in turn depends upon its water resources.  Per capita availability of surface water has been gradually reduced in Pakistan from 5300 cubic meters in 1951 to 1100 cubic meters in 2007 and it is projected that in 2020 it may further reduce to 850 cubic meters. With the stresses on water availability, climate change is also likely to play its role in influencing the water flows in the rivers.

Almost 80% of the flows of the Indus River System (IRS) are attributed to snow and glacial melt in the region. Glaciers in Pakistan cover approximately 15,000 Sq. Km area and these glacier are beleived to be acutely threatened under climate change. However, in a few recent studies, it is reported that glaciers in Hindukush-Karakoram-Himalaya (HKH) region are expanding. It is also suggested that winter precipitation at higher altitudes is teleconnected to North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). All these conflicting evidences has made the behavior of HKH glaciers very uncertain and has called for further research in this area.

In this work the Max Planck Institute's regional climate model REMO will be used with its online coupling with Dynamical Glacial Scheme (Kotlarski, 2008) over the HKH region. REMO will be forced by ERA40 reanalysis for the period 1958-2001 at 1/2 degree and then at 1/6th degree using double nesting. The Hydrologic Discharge (HD) model will be forced with REMO output to calculate river runoff. A climate change simulation with REMO and the HD model over the HKH region forced by the global MPI-M IPCC simulations will be conducted at 1/2 degree and then double nested to 1/6th degree. This includes a simulation for the control period 1950-2000 and an A1B scenario simulation for 2001-2100. The results of the climate change simulations will be analysed focusing on the hydrologcial cycle and the glacial runoff.

Back to Fahad Homepage

Link to Terrestrial Hydrology