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Climate change affect Himalayas differently
25/Aug/2006: Geologists have said that climatic changes in the Western Himalayas and the surrounding Karakoram and Hindukush mountain ranges could explain why glaciers there are growing and not melting.
Scientists said this could be because, the area known as the Upper Indus Basin could be reacting differently to global warming, and this might also explain why glaciers in the Eastern Himalayas, Nepal and India were showing signs of melting and shrinking.
Melted water from the glaciers together with the previous winter s snow supplied water for the summer runoff , which fed irrigation both in the mountains and in the plains of the Lower Indus.
As the amount of runoff depended on the elaborate interplay of weather conditions, one third of the runoff - that which came from the higher mountain regions, was largely dependent on the temperature in the summer.
Specifically, the fall of one degree centigrade in mean summer temperature since 1961 is thought to have caused a 20 per cent drop in runoff into the higher mountain rivers.
As such, this research would help scientists to better predict trends that could contribute to more effective, forward-thinking management of the two major dams in the Upper Indus Basin, the Mangla Dam and the Tarbela Dam, and thus allow a better long-term control of water for irrigation and power supplies.
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