Could mountaineer Laura Dahlmeier still live if there were no climate change? Of course, an answer to this is speculative. But it cannot be dismissed that the ever higher temperatures in Pakistan have also strongly added to the former German biathlon star. Stone chips, as he was doomed Dahlmeier, is becoming increasingly common at the region’s mountains.
The adhesive melts
The 6096 meter high Laila Peak in the Karakorum is an eye -catcher. Its shape is reminiscent of a shark tooth that protrudes into the sky. The mountain is steeply and mountaineering from all sides. When the author of this article passed this mountain 20 years ago, his northwest wall was still covered with a thick layer of snow.
This attracted not only climbers, but also extreme skiers who tried to depart this steep wall. In the meantime there are only a thin snow pad in this mountain flank in some places, but wide areas are now bare rock.
Before this year’s climbing season, which started in July, the usual rainfalls failed to materialize. In addition, the snow melts accelerated very high temperatures. In the small town of Chilas, located at 1265 meters of sea on the southern edge of the Karakorum, the thermometer rose to the record of 48.5 degrees Celsius in July.
It was raining to heights over 5500 meters instead of snowing, even night frost stayed out there in some places. Mountains and mountaineers reported unusually warm and dry conditions on the country up to 8,000 meters high.
Snow and ice are usually something like a natural adhesive that ensures that boulders remain on the spot. If the snow melts, the risk of rockfall and wet snow avalanches increases. Some expeditions left the Karakorum early this summer, without success. The tenor: Too dangerous.
Expeditions must change your schedules
“I think the expeditions will have to go to Pakistan earlier – because of the climate change that can be felt very clearly there”,says the experienced German climber David Göttler. “I think that’s inevitable.”
At the end of June, Göttler rose the 8125 meter high Nanga Parbat – in an alpine style, i.e. without bottle oxygen, without firmly installed ropes, without solid high bearings and without the support of high -bearers. With his two teammates from France, he had previously got used to the thin air in Nepal at a sixth thousand and a seven thousand broadcaster.
“It’s amazing how quickly these mountains change,” said Göttler. “The objective dangers are greater, the rockfall increases.” For example on the 7162 meter high baruntse, not far from Mount Everest: “Huge columns open on the summit ridge that you have to find your way around. In the past, it was not a very demanding mountain,” reports Göttler. “But now you have to be a beginner on a seven thousand like this with the crampons.”
In order to avoid threatening rockfall in the warm lunchtime, the summit candidates are now opening up earlier. Climbers are only on the road at night at particularly endangered mountains and rest during the day.
Heavy rains, dam breaks on glacier lakes
The extreme weather events due to climate change also increase at the highest mountains. In the Karakorum, several concrete bridges were literally washed away over rivers a week and a half ago. Expeditions therefore had to accept detours when arriving and departure. At least 18 people died.
In Nepal, too, water masses destroyed a bridge over a border river to Tibet in July. More than 20 people were killed. The trigger of the flood disaster: violent monsoon rain, reinforced by a glacier lake flood.
Due to the increasing melts of glacial melt, large lakes form below behind natural dams. If these dams break, the water masses race down the valley. The international Center for Integrated Development in Mountain Regions (ICIMOD) in Nepal warned that the number of such so -called GLOFS (Glacial Lake Lake Outburst Floods) has increased rapidly in the Himalaya and Karakorum.
At the umbilical cord of mountain tourism
The increasing dangers – and also connected opportunities for the success of the summit – could lead to the interest in the interest in commercial expeditions in the medium term. This would be an economic disaster for regions such as the area around Mount Everest in Nepal or many small towns and villages in northern Pakistan.
Most people there hang on the umbilical cord of mountain tourism. If the mountaineers stay out, not only loses their jobs. Lodge owners are then there without guests, hosts and retailers lose their customers.
It is not for nothing that states such as Nepal and Pakistan that do not get tired of warning of the dangers of global climate change and warning determined measures by the industrialized countries.
But their appeals are largely unscathed – as well as that of Portuguese António Guterres in November 2023.
“I am here in the Himalaya, where the glaciers melt in record. As in Greenland. As in the Antarctic. “Here we see floods, we see landslides, we see communities that are dramatically affected. We have to stop this madness.”