Department of Earth Sciences, University of Kashmir, Hazratbal, Srinagar Kashmir, 190006, India.
Environ Monit Assess. 2014 Apr;186(4):2549-62. doi: 10.1007/s10661-013-3559-7. Epub 2013 Dec 7.
Mountain areas are sensitive to climate change. Implications of climate change can be seen in less snow, receding glaciers, increasing temperatures, and decreasing precipitation. Climate change is also a severe threat to snow-related winter sports such as skiing, snowboarding, and cross-country skiing. The change in climate will put further pressure on the sensitive environment of high mountains. Therefore, in this study, an attempt has been made to know the impact of climate change on the snow precipitation, water resources, and winter tourism in the two famous tourist resorts of the Kashmir Valley. Our findings show that winters are getting prolonged with little snow falls on account of climate change. The average minimum and maximum temperatures are showing statistically significant increasing trends for winter months. The precipitation is showing decreasing trends in both the regions. A considerable area in these regions remains under the snow and glacier cover throughout the year especially during the winter and spring seasons. However, time series analysis of LandSat MODIS images using Normalized Difference Snow Index shows a decreasing trend in snow cover in both the regions from past few years. Similarly, the stream discharge, comprising predominantly of snow- and glacier-melt, is showing a statistically significant declining trend despite the melting of these glaciers. The predicted futuristic trends of temperature from Predicting Regional Climates for Impact Studies regional climate model are showing an increase which may enhance snow-melting in the near future posing a serious threat to the sustainability of winter tourism in the region. Hence, it becomes essential to monitor the changes in temperature and snow cover depletion in these basins in order to evaluate their effect on the winter tourism and water resources in the region.
山区对气候变化敏感。气候变化的影响体现在降雪减少、冰川退缩、气温升高和降水减少等方面。气候变化也是滑雪、单板滑雪和越野滑雪等与雪相关的冬季运动的严重威胁。气候变化将进一步给高山敏感环境带来压力。因此，在这项研究中，我们试图了解气候变化对克什米尔谷两个著名旅游胜地的雪量、水资源和冬季旅游的影响。我们的研究结果表明，由于气候变化，冬季变得更长，降雪量也很少。冬季各月的平均最低和最高气温呈统计学上显著上升趋势。两个地区的降水都呈下降趋势。这些地区相当大的一部分地区全年，尤其是冬季和春季，都被积雪和冰川覆盖。然而，使用归一化差分雪指数对陆地卫星 MODIS 图像的时间序列分析表明，近年来两个地区的积雪覆盖都呈减少趋势。同样，主要由雪和冰川融化组成的河流流量也呈统计学上显著下降趋势，尽管这些冰川正在融化。区域气候模型对影响研究的区域气候预测的未来温度预测趋势显示，气温将上升，这可能会导致近期积雪融化，对该地区冬季旅游的可持续性构成严重威胁。因此，监测这些流域的温度变化和积雪消融对于评估它们对该地区冬季旅游和水资源的影响至关重要。
