Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) in collaboration with Italian research organisation EV-K2-CNR, has installed another Automatic Weather Station (AWS) near Concordia at Baltoro glacier. The station will continuously record the parameters including precipitation, snow depth, wind speed and direction, temperature, relative humidity, incoming solar radiation (long and short wave) out-going terrestrial radiation (long and short wave) and net radiation.
Chief Meteorologist, Ghulam Rasul told APP here on Friday that Baltoro glacier is in Shigar basin with mean length of 62 km and an area of 640 square kilometers approximately. It is the third largest glacier outside the polar region and many renowned peaks around 8000 meters high lie in its outskirts, he said. It is also a common approach to K-2, the world's second largest peak. The elevation of the Concordia is 4700 m.a.s.l (Mean Average Sea Level) and it is junction of many glaciers at Baltoro Glacier Complex.
Formerly, two AWS are already installed at Baltoro Glacier at Urdukas at Altitude of 3926 m a.s.l and Askoli at 3015 m a.s.l. This summer, an international team of Pakistani, Italian, Austrian and German scientists visited Baltoro Glacier from July 15 to August 12, 2011.
Furrukh Bashir, Adnan Shafiq Rana and Habibullah Brohi from PMD represented Pakistan, whereas, Dr Christoph Mayer, Dr Astrid and Michiale Weber were from Germany, Dr Deniele Bocchiola, Boris Bisconi, Giampetro Verza, and Bonnito Luigi represented Italy. The team reached Concordia from Skardu after travelling about 70 km distance on foot in six days, where an AWS was installed at an elevation of 4650 m a.s.l. Chief Meteorologist said the team was divided into two parts ie, High Group and Low Group. High Group lead by Dr Christoph Mayer proceeded further to Goodwin Austain up to elevation of 6000 m a.s.l and collected glacier samples by digging snow pits and drilling the ice sheets. Same experiments were conducted on Gashabrum 2.
Meanwhile, Low Group returned back from Concordia and drilled stakes throughout the glacier for melting experiment and estimated depth of glacier ice through Ground Penetrating Radars at various locations. The PMD has been following a systematic approach to address the water and food security issues of Pakistan in the light of climate change scenarios by generating in-situ data substantiated by satellite observations to draw logical conclusions, Ghulam Rasul said.
An integrated modelling system is being developed in collaboration with International Institutions such as Tokyo University (Japan), EDH (Switzerland), IFW (Netherlands), Ev-K2-CNR (Italy), ICIMOD (Nepal), GIZ (Germany). He said two AWS have already been installed on Passu Glacier, in Hunza valley with the financial assistance of ICIMOD. Hopefully, by the end of this summer, another Glacier Monitoring Station will be installed at Gulkin Glacier in Hunza valley funded by ICIMOD.
This glacier has a surging behaviour and its outburst caused serious damage to surrounding villages. After a thorough investigation of glacier dynamics, PMD intends to develop a pre-alert and warning system for local population. The role of ICIMOD is highly commendable to sustain PMD's Glacier Monitoring and Research initiative, Ghulam Rasul said.