PAPRIKA KARAKORUM The Hindu Kush – Himalaya - Karakorum region includes the sources of several river basins that are widely fed by merging glaciers and seasonal snow, representing a source of water for hundreds of thousands of people in India, China, Pakistan and Nepal. Every change in water regime of HKKH region and in drinking water availability could have critical consequences on local people, whose lives are depending upon these river basins. The monitoring of glaciers in Himalayan regions has been showing an evident reduction of snow cover and glacier size since the Fifties. On the contrary, glaciers in Karakorum region, in western Himalaya, do not show a reduction trend but, in some case, a slight extension is recorded. In HKKH region the meteo-climatic regime is complex since it is characterized by a dominance of summer monsoon on the east and by the importance of Western Meteorological systems (atmospheric perturbations coming from Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean sea) on the west. Therefore the global description of these mountain areas is scarcely useful while a careful analysis of several under-regions and of specific climatic and environmental dynamics active in each under-regions, is needed. For this reasons, PAPRIKA project is devoted to study some key areas in HKKH, with particular attention to cryosphere dynamics, water resources and atmospheric aerosol. Description CryosPheric responses to Anthropogenic PRessures in the HIndu Kush-Himalaya regions: impacts on water resources agriculture and society adaptation in Nepal and Pakistan: regional climate observations and future scenarios. SHARE-PAPRIKA is a three year project (2010-2014) composed of two sub-projects: PAPRIKA-KARAKORUM funded by Ev-K2-CNR and PAPRIKA-HIMALAYA funded by CNRS.
State of the art Glaciers and snow cover changes are recognised as high-confidence indicators of environmental changes and reaction to climate forcing. However, the mechanisms by which the cryospheric system is affected by climate change are complex and not resulting solely from global temperature rises.
Glacial dynamics is affected both from local variability and large-scale atmospheric circulation as, in HKKH region, the summer monsoon in Southern Asia, and the winter perturbation coming from Mediterranean and Atlantic. In addition to these effects, the increase of anthropic atmospheric pollutant, and in particular of carbonaceous aerosol (Black Carbon) is modifying atmospheric circulation and snow melting regime. Recent observations of high pollutants’ concentration in HKKH mountain region bring new concerns for a possible faster snow and glacier melting and, as a consequence, for a change in hydrological dynamics in drier regions. The recent observations of very high atmospheric concentrations of pollutants in the remote regions of HKH leads to new concerns about faster melting of the cryosphere and, hence, water dynamics (storage, availability) in the drier regions. Aims The PAPRIKA Project focuses on current and future evolution of the cryosphere system in response to global and regional environmental changes and their consequences on water resources in main landscape units within Nepal (PAPRIKA-NEPAL) and PAKISTAN (PAPRIKA-KARAKORUM).
It addresses the driving physical and chemical processes acting on the evolution of the cryosphere, their evolution in a changing climate and their impact on water resource dynamics at regional scale. It also addresses perceptions and representations of the water resource and of changes in water availability, on subsequent adaptations already implemented, and on territorial and social restructurings taking into account people's indigenous knowledge on the potential changes in natural resources and environmental hazards.
Program PAPRIKA-Karakorum is devoted to determining the effects of atmospheric aerosols, particularly Black Carbon (BC) and mineral dust, on glacier dynamics, on the hydrologic cycle and on water availability, using both in-situ and remotely-sensed data and an integrated modelling approach, with a specific focus on the Karakorum area and, in particular, on Baltoro glacier and the upper Indus basin in Pakistan.
The scientific goals of PAPRIKA-Karakorum are:
- Obtain a quantitative assessment of the current state of the atmospheric properties and circulation; aerosol load, deposition and chemical properties; glacier status, mass/energy balance and flow estimates; and hydrologic characteristics, including water quantity and quality, in the two study areas.
- Provide an ensemble of integrated modelling tools, based and validated on field and remotely sensed data (satellites and airborne radars), to obtain quantitative estimates of water availability and climate change impacts on agriculture, environment and ecosystems in the coming decades.
Themes
- Assess the effect of aerosols on the atmospheric circulation and on the processes associated with seasonal snow melt, glacier mass/energy balance and ice ablation.
- Study the interactions between western weather systems, particularly important for the Karakoram, and the snow and ice distribution.
- Understand and model the dynamics of partially debris-covered glaciers and quantify how debris-covered glaciers respond to climate change;.
- Develop downscaling procedures for stochastic parameterizations in regional climate models.
- Obtain an average representation, at regional scale, of cryospheric and hydrologic budgets by the use of remote sensing data, validated on field measurements.
- Build and validate an integrated modelling system that uses global climate models, includes a regional climate model with snow and ice interactions, and provides the input to hydrological models to estimate water availability in different scenarios of climate change and aerosol emissions.
Targets
- Obtain a quantitative assessment of the current state of the atmospheric properties and circulation; aeorosol load, deposition and chemical properties; glacier status, mass/energy balance and flow estimates; and hydrologic characteristics, including water quantity and quality, in the two study areas. The observational part of PAPRIKA-Karakorum will be devoted to high-altitude areas of the Karakorum in Pakistan, with a specific focus on the region of Baltoro glacier and the upper Indus basin.
- Provide an ensemble of integrated modelling tools, based and validated on field and remotely sensed data (satellites and airborne radars), to obtain quantitative estimates of water availability and climate change impacts on agriculture, environment and ecosystems in the coming decades (2010-2050).
- Develop strategies for capacity building, dissemination and information transfer to policy makers.
Partners
- ISAC-CNR, Istituto di Scienze dell'Atmosfera e del Clima: A. Provenzale, P. Bonasoni, P. Cristofanelli, S. Decesari, C. Facchini, F. Fierli, S. Fuzzi, J. von Hardenberg, A. Marinoni, E. Palazzi.
- UNIMI, Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università di Milano: C. Smiraglia, C. D'Agata, G. Diolaiuti, C. Mihalcea.
- BAW, Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities: C. Mayer and coworkers.
- INGV, Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Roma: A. Zirizzotti, I. Tabacco, S. Urbini.
- POLIMI, Dipartimento di Ingegneria Idraulica, Ambientale, Infrastrutture Viarie, Rilevamento - Sez. Costruzioni Idrauliche e marittime, Idrologia (DIIAR-CIMI): R. Rosso, A. Bianchi, D. Bocchiola, B. Groppelli, M.C. Rulli, M. Soncini.
- ISE-CNR, Istituto per lo Studio degli Ecosistemi: A. Lami, A. Marchetto.
- CMCC, Euro-Mediterranean Center for Climate Change: A. Navarra, C. Cagnazzo, S. Gualdi.
- ICTP, International Center for Theoretical Physics: F. Giorgi, F. Solmon.
- TU Delft, Technical University Delft: M. Menenti and coworkers
- Ev-K2-CNR: E. Vuillermoz, F. Steffanoni, C. Belotti.
- SEED project: F. Mari and coworkers.
Publications Click HERE for Paprika Karakorum publications.
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