Slushy development

The 20th century had been the wettest in the high mountains of northern Pakistan in the last millennium, according to a team of Swiss and German scientists.

In a study, published in the April 27 issue of Nature (Vol 440, No 7088), they reported that the Karakoram and Himalayan mountains received maximum snow in the last 150 years, the period coinciding with the advent of industrial revolution and rising greenhouse emissions.

For the study, the scientists reconstructed the annual precipitation data for the last 1,000 years. They used local snowfall records to find out the relationship between precipitation and oxygen present in tree rings of juniper (Juniperus excelsa, J turkestanica). Juniper trees are known to survive for thousands of years.