OnlyKashmir News Desk
A new study by researchers from IIT Kharagpur has found that Jammu and Kashmir’s high-altitude regions, including Pahalgam and Gulmarg, have warmed by nearly 1°C over the past two decades, outpacing the rate of warming in lower-elevation areas. The research, spanning temperature records from 1980 to 2024 across ten IMD stations, identified a pattern known as Elevation-Dependent Warming, in which winter daytime temperatures at higher elevations are rising fastest. Bhaderwah recorded one of the steepest annual warming trends, at around 0.3°C per decade, while several mid-elevation stations also showed marked increases. Night-time temperatures, the study found, are climbing even faster than daytime ones in many mountain locations, a trend researchers linked to shrinking snow cover exposing darker, heat-absorbing ground, along with rising atmospheric moisture trapping more heat overnight. The authors warned that continued warming threatens glaciers, snow cover, river flows and biodiversity across the Western Himalaya, with knock-on effects for the millions who depend on its water resources, and called for a denser network of high-altitude weather stations to sharpen future assessments.
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