The Karakoram Anomaly Decoded

For decades, scientists have believed that glaciers in the Karakoram Range are defying the trend of those across the globe-resisting glacial melt due to human-induced global warming. But as we trek up the Karakoram's second-longest glacier in July, as the United Nations announces the world's hottest ever month on record, does the melting ice beneath our feet suggest the so-called Karakoram Anomaly is slowing? Or is there a ray of hope it will continue to delay the inevitable?

- Anita Verde

It is midsummer in Pakistan’s northern region of Gilgit-Baltistan, on the treacherous and unforgiving Baltoro Glacier, the second longest in the Karakoram Range and one of the largest outside the polar regions. We are trekking our way to the amphitheatre of Concordia, the confluence of the Baltoro, Godwin-Austen, Gasherbrum and Vigne Glaciers. Otherwise known as the “Throne Room of the Gods”, this is an otherworldly place flanked by the greatest concentration of the world’s highest peaks, including the second highest, K2. At an altitude of almost 5,000 metres, it’s hot – really hot. “I’m no expert, but the glacier looks like it’s dying,” proclaims Martin Mazurek, a fellow expedition group member and Professor of Geology at the University of Bern in Switzerland.

THE DEATH OF A GLACIER

Sadly, dying glaciers are fast becoming part of the tragic tale that is human-induced climate change. In August 2019, around 100 people scrambled up a mountain to mourn the death of Iceland’s Okjökull glacier – otherwise known as OK. Broken-hearted Icelandic glaciologist Oddur Sigurdsson produced a death certificate and announced that the glacier was no longer OK at all. The principal cause of the glacier’s demise: “excessive heat” and “humans”, he said. This tragic tale is indeed one of great loss. Biodiversity fading, extinction of species, sea levels rising and habitats shrinking – all are happening so subtly that the reality is difficult to grasp. But when you are on the glacier itself, the evidence is staring you right in the face. Yet, just because we can see the glacier melting under our feet, does this mean it is actually dying?

THE KARAKORAM ANOMALY