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Considering prevailing temperature and increasing outflows from Shishper
Glacier, an outburst from Glacial Lake (Muchuhur stream obstructed by Shishper glacier) is expected in coming days, warned Pakistan Meteorological Department.
To predict GLOF, PMD is closely monitoring the Electrical Conductivity (EC) of Shishper Glacier outflows. The EC values of Muchuhur glacier inflows (~150 µs/cm) and Glacier dammed lake (~194 µs/cm) are starkly different from that of Shishper outflows (~75 µs/cm), a spokesman of the department said on Friday.
Shishper is a surging or advancing glacier, formed around the beginning of the 20th century, after the then known as Hassanabad glacier in the north of the Hunza valley split into two.
The ice-dammed lake flooded twice last year damaging a small part of Karakoram highway besides threatening erosion of land downstream.
According to environmentalists, climate change is causing most glaciers worldwide to shrink, but due to a meteorological anomaly this is one of a few in the Karakoram mountain range in northern Pakistan that are surging.
This means hundreds of tonnes of ice and debris are pushing down the valley at ten times the normal rate or more, threatening the safety of the people and homes below.
Flash floods caused by glacial lakes, ice and rock falls, and a lack of clean and accessible water are all serious risks for those close to its path.
When a glacial lake bursts there is an enormous amount of not only ice, water and debris that falls through, but also mud and this has devastating effects, it basically destroys everything that comes in its way.
But repercussions of the Shisper glacier surge extend far beyond its path: The mighty Indus River is reliant on seasonal melt for more than half of its flow and changes in Pakistan’s ice fields affect this.
That has implications not just for those living in its basin, but for the whole nation, which relies on it for much of its food.
