Scientists probe Tajik glacier for clues to climate resistance

GREENLAND is melting, the Alps are melting and the Himalayas are melting — yet in one vast mountain region, huge glaciers have remained stable, or even gained mass, in recent decades.

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Can it last?

To find out, a dozen scientists, accompanied by a photographer, trekked high over one glacier in eastern Tajikistan to drill for ice cores - ancient, deep samples that can shed precious light on climate change.

In September and October, they first spent four days crossing the country from west to east in four-wheel drives, then climbed on foot to over 5 800 metres altitude on the Kon-Chukurbashi ice cap, near the Chinese border.

Camping for a week at the summit, in freezing temperatures and despite a daylong blizzard, the scientists from Switzerland, Japan, the US and Tajikistan drilled the glacier to extract two 105-metre-long ice cores, in sections.

These layers of ice, compacted over centuries, perhaps millennia, form an archive of climate indicators, yielding data on past snowfall, temperatures, atmosphere and dust.