Climate Change Pakistan

Country: Pakistan - Jason Tran

Climate Change

Khan, F., Ali, S., Mayer, C., Ullah, H., Muhammad, S., & Shahid, S. (2022). Climate change and spatio-temporal trend analysis of climate extremes in the homogeneous climatic zones of Pakistan during 1962-2019. PloS One, 17(7), e0271626–e0271626. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0271626 Saeed, F., Almazroui, M., Islam, N., & Khan, M. S. (2017). Intensification of future heat waves in Pakistan: a study using CORDEX regional climate models ensemble. Natural Hazards (Dordrecht), 87(3), 1635–1647. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-017-2837-z

Global warming has caused an increase in temperature, which prompts the melting of glaciers in places like the Karakoram region. (Khan, Ali, Mayer, Ullah, and Muhammad, 2022). Amongst the intensification of heat waves, floods from the melting of these glaciers also happen, threatening humans and animals alike (Saeed, Almazroui, Islam, and Khan, 2017). Droughts might also affect some regions of Pakistan as global temperatures rise, making them prone to desertification.

How has climate change affected this area?

Methods like building barriers to slow down floodwaters are being done to decrease the damage caused by flooding. Systems to communicate information in case of floods are being put in place and/or improved. Global warming is an issue that affects everyone on the globe, and efforts to decrease carbon emissions are being done in an attempt to stave off the devastating effects of global warming. If people manage to curb global warming and its consequences, then there will be global benefits, including these issues that plague these parts of Pakistan.

What is being done to help combat or remedy the situation?

Emmer, A., Harrison, S., Mergili, M., Allen, S., Frey, H., & Huggel, C. (2020). 70 years of lake evolution and glacial lake outburst floods in the Cordillera Blanca (Peru) and implications for the future. Geomorphology, 365, 107178-. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2020.107178

Country: Peru i. How does this affect the region around it? Peru’s region is affected by a consequence of global warming as well, that being the floods that come from the melting of glaciers. These are known as glacial lake outburst floods, and this region appears to have "one of the world's longest GLOF records" (Emmer, Harrison, Mergili, Allen, Frey, and Huggel, 2020). ii. What effects does it have globally? Aside from it being an indicator and a premonition of flooding by glacier melts worldwide, it an also have an affect on societies. Damages to Peru done by these floods might affect business the country has with other countries. People might also want to leave the country as well, which affects populations of the places they move to.

Where else in the world is experiencing a similar form of climate change?

Khan, F., Ali, S., Mayer, C., Ullah, H., Muhammad, S., & Shahid, S. (2022). Climate change and spatio-temporal trend analysis of climate extremes in the homogeneous climatic zones of Pakistan during 1962-2019. PloS One, 17(7), e0271626–e0271626. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0271626 Saeed, F., Almazroui, M., Islam, N., & Khan, M. S. (2017). Intensification of future heat waves in Pakistan: a study using CORDEX regional climate models ensemble. Natural Hazards (Dordrecht), 87(3), 1635–1647. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-017-2837-z Emmer, A., Harrison, S., Mergili, M., Allen, S., Frey, H., & Huggel, C. (2020). 70 years of lake evolution and glacial lake outburst floods in the Cordillera Blanca (Peru) and implications for the future. Geomorphology, 365, 107178-. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2020.107178

Scholarly References