{"id":3831,"date":"2019-09-04T09:18:36","date_gmt":"2019-09-04T09:18:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.reading.ac.uk\/connected\/?p=3831"},"modified":"2020-08-06T12:21:21","modified_gmt":"2020-08-06T12:21:21","slug":"retreating-glaciers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.reading.ac.uk\/connected\/2019\/09\/04\/retreating-glaciers\/","title":{"rendered":"Retreating Glaciers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Professor Maria Shaghedenova\u2019s research looks at the shrinkage of glaciers due to climate change, and the effect of this on rivers and lakes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Her work recently featured in a\u00a0visually stunning interactive New York Times piece<\/a>\u00a0about melting glaciers in Kazakhstan. Here, she tells CONNECTED about the science behind the story.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe New York Times story originates from our research project\u00a0Climate Change, Water Resources and Food Security in Kazakhstan<\/a>\u00a0which was funded in 2015-17 by the Newton \u2013 al Farabi Fund. Our main collaborators were the Department of Glaciology at the\u00a0Kazakhstan Institute of Geography<\/a>\u00a0(KIG) led by Professor Igor Severskiy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soviet era weather station<\/strong><\/h4>\n

\u201cWe started collaborating with KIG, which runs several high-elevation meteorological-glaciological stations, in 2009. The most important of these stations is the Tuyuksu Mountain Observatory, at 3438 metres above sea level, established during the Soviet Era in 1957\/58 (the First International Geophysical Year) at the tongue of the Tuyuksu glacier.<\/p>\n

\u201cTuyuksu is one of the world\u2019s reference glaciers \u2013 that is, one of a network of glaciers which are regularly measured coordinated by the\u00a0World Glacier Monitoring Service<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

“The station is particularly significant because it has such a long record, and the KIG managed to keep it going after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when most monitoring facilities in Central Asia were closed.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cThe station took mass balance measurements [a measure of a glacier\u2019s health] but also made basic manual meteorological measurements. In 2015, using money from the project, we installed several automatic weather stations with a full range of micrometeorological measurements forming a vertical profile from 600m on the plain all the way to Tuyuksu (this is what you see on the final image in the New York Times piece).\u201d<\/p>\n

Steady shrinkage<\/strong><\/h4>\n

\u201cIn our project, we documented glacier change in the region in terms of its area (a decline of 1% per year since the 1950s), volume and mass balance. We assessed changes in climate using historical data from high-altitude stations and we put together an archive of water discharge data from the region. Data from several natural catchments were analysed for trends.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cOur main conclusion was\u00a0there had been no negative trends in discharge since the 1950s<\/a>, but some increase since the 1970s, which is when most observations start.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cAs part of our research, we ran regional climate models for Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports to generate future climate scenarios and used a hydrological model to simulate future changes in discharge from the glacier. Our main conclusion was that peak flow has already been reached and will continue until the 2040s. We expect to see a decline in water discharge from the glacier in the summers afterwards.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wasted water<\/strong><\/h4>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cWe also collaborated with local farmers to gather data on crop production and water use for irrigation. We found the irrigation system to be in a very poor state with inefficient use of water.<\/p>\n

“The local Kazakhstan administration often says that there is no water due to climate change, so they were quite surprised when we said that currently, there is more of it than there used to be! Crop models have been set up to assess how the lack of water may affect crops in the future.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cOur work in Kazakhstan continues, and together, with KIG we have won several new grants to work in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Find out more about Professor Maria Shaghedenova\u2019s research<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This article was first published in the\u00a0New York Times on 17 April 2019<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Professor Maria Shaghedenova\u2019s research looks at the shrinkage of glaciers due to climate change, and the effect of this on rivers and lakes.\u00a0 Her work recently featured in a\u00a0visually stunning interactive New York Times piece\u00a0about melting glaciers in Kazakhstan. Here, she tells CONNECTED about the science behind the story. \u201cThe New York Times story originates […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":3832,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[19,20,23,24,38],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nRetreating Glaciers - Connected<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Professor Shaghedenova\u2019s research looks at the shrinkage of glaciers due to climate change, and the effect of this on rivers and lakes.\u00a0\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.reading.ac.uk\/connected\/2019\/09\/04\/retreating-glaciers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Retreating Glaciers - 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