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. Can it last?

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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 fourwheel 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.