Torrential rainfall is the most obvious perpetrator of the devastating floods sweeping across Pakistan. Starting in April, scorching heat waves extended and intensified the South Asian country’s monsoon season, dumping close to 300% the average seasonal rainfall on the country since June, causing major rivers to break their banks. Officials say the floods have submerged a third of the country, killing over 1,100 people and displacing hundreds of thousands more.
But, high up in the mountains above Pakistan, the prolonged heat also accelerated a devastating flood catalyst that Pakistan is uniquely susceptible to: the rapid melting of giant glaciers.
“We have the largest number of glaciers outside the polar region, and this affects us,” Climate Minister Sherry Rehman told the Associated Press. “Instead of keeping their majesty and preserving them for posterity and nature, we are seeing them melt.”
Nestled beneath the foothills of the Himalayas, north Pakistan is home to 7,532 glaciers which, on average, have melted ten times faster in the last decade than they have over the last two centuries. As those glaciers thaw and recede, the meltwater forms lakes, dammed only by rocky debris deposited by the same retreating ice wall. If the dams break, water cascades down the mountain in a raging torrent, demolishing anything in its way.
Of the more than 3,000 glacial lakes glistening high over Pakistan, the United Nations Development Program considers 33 of them “prone” to outburst...
Read Full Story: https://fortune.com/2022/08/31/pakistan-flood-2022-glaciers-cause-climate-change/
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