Download Pakistan Reference Site Urdukas Station - Name - Ev-K2-CNR

Pakistan Reference Site Urdukas Station
Regional Hydroclimate Project:
CEOP_AP (Coordinated Energy and water cycle Observation Project_Asia and Pacific)
CEOP_HE (High Elevations)
Reference Site Name:
Pakistan Karakorum Network
Station Name:
Urdukas
Other Stations at Reference Site:
Askole
Contact Information:
Name: Elisa Vuillermoz
Affiliation: Ev-K2-CNR Committee
Address: Via San Bernardino, 145 24126 Bergamo, ITALY
E-mail: [email protected]
Telephone: 0039-035-3230511
Fax: 0039-035-3230551
Name: Gianni Tartari
Affiliation: CNR-Water Research Institute (IRSA)
Address: c/o Ev-K2-CNR Committee, Via San Bernardino, 145 24126 Bergamo, ITALY
E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]
Telephone: 0039-035-3230511
Fax: 0039-035-3230551
Associated Web Sites:
 CEOP (www.ceop.net)
 HE (www.ceop-he.org)
 Ev-K2-CNR (www.evk2cnr.org)
Station Location, Maps and Google Earth Files:
Latitude: 35o 43' 41" N
Longitude: 76o 17' 10" E
Elevation: 3926 m
CEOP_AP Regional Map (click for full resolution):
CAMP Reference Site
Pakistan Regional Map (click for full resolution):
Google Earth.kmz file of Mahasri Pakistan Reference Site stations and radiosonde locations
Descriptions:
Station Description:
General Description:
The HKKH mountain ranges are extraordinarily high mountain chains, spanning over thousands of
kilometers across 6 South Asian countries and encompassing an extensive diversity of flora and
fauna, unparalleled natural beauty and many varied cultures. They harbour some of the world’s
richest but atmospherically, climatically, geologically and ecologically sensitive and fragile
environments and biodiversity, and many protected areas of profound importance are in these
mountain regions. The glaciers in these mountains feed most of the major river systems in the
region (Ganges, Indus, Brahmaputra, Salween, Mekong, Yangtze and Yellow Rivers) - lifeline for
hundreds of millions of peoples downstream. The Central Karakorum ecosystem in the Northern
area of Pakistan is endowed with rich floral and faunal biodiversities, natural beauty and other
natural resources such as forest resources.
The Baltoro Glacier, 62 km long, is one of the longest glaciers outside of the Polar Regions. It is
located in Baltistan, in the Northern Areas of Pakistan, and runs through part of the Karakoram
mountain range. In the middle of the Baltoro glacier there is the campsite of Urdukas located on
the trek way to Concordia.
The automatic weather station was installed on the Baltoro Glacier, more precisely on a moraine
ridge close to the left glacier margin at 4000 m asl. At Urdukas the meteorological parameters (air
temperature, wind speed and direction, air pressure, humidity, precipitation, global global
radiation) are collected as hourly mean values since June 17, 2004.
The terrain around the Pakistan Reference Site (click for full resolution):
Station Operator: Ev-K2-CNR Committee
Vegetation and Land Use:
Dominant land cover at the measurement location: No information.
Canopy height: No information.
Land cover within 50 m of site: No information.
Land cover within 500 m of site: No information.
Land cover within 12 km of site: No information.
Seasonal land cover changes: No information.
Major changes in land cover at site from October 2002 to December 2004: No information.
Slope at the site: No information.
Other notes: None.
Soil Type and Characterization:
Surface soil type: No information.
Soil type in deeper layers: No information.
Surface soil porosity: No information.
Soil porosity in deeper layers: No information.
Soil infiltration rate: No information.
Bulk Dry Density: No information.
Saturated Hydraulic Conductivity: No information.
The Soil Reference Group(s) (from World Reference Base for Soil Resources): No information.
Climate:
The climate in high altitude mountains of the Northern Areas is influenced by the broad global
circulation patterns associated with the position in the continental mass and the proximity to the
oceans (Archer 2001). During the winter and spring period the Karakoram area is influenced
mainly by a broad scale weather system originating primarily from the Mediterranean or from the
area of the Caspian Sea (Singh et al. 1995) and from air mass convective storm in the premonsoon season (Archer 2001). According to Wake (1987) there are indications that at least
some of the higher altitude precipitation is originating from westerly systems. In the winter
however Archer (2001) claims that under the prevailing influence of the Tibetan anticyclone, local
conditions are dominant. It goes without saying that mountain climates are also influenced on the
medium and local scale by elevation, valley orientation, aspect and slope and the height and
number of upwind barriers to the airflow.
In spite of climate changes, studies carried out on Baltoro Glacier show small and limited
variations its extension in the last 50 years (Mihalcea et al., 2006, 2008). In fact this zone is
characterized by low temperatures and a climate very wet. The different activity of Baltoro
Glacier in respect to most of the mountain glaciers is most likely due to the different supraglacial
conditions characterising its glacier tongue. On Baltoro Glacier the debris insulation effect allowed
a larger quantity of ice in the glacier tongue to be conserved. The climate isn’t influenced by
monsoons and precipitations present a regular trend.
CEOP Parameters Measured and Instrumentation:
SURFACE METEOROLOGY AND RADIATION INSTRUMENTATION AND DESCRIPTION: The
sensors are mounted on a 2-m and a 5-m masts.

Station pressure 2m CX115P Lsi-Lastem (Italy)

Air Temperature 2m DMA570 Lsi-Lastem (Italy))

Dew point - (2 m derived)

Relative humidity 2 m DMA570 Lsi-Lastem (Italy)

Specific humidity (2 m derived)

Wind speed 5m DNA022 Lsi-Lastem (Italy)

Wind direction 5m DNA022 Lsi-Lastem (Italy)

U wind component (derived) (5 m)

V wind component (derived) (5 m)

Precipitation - 1.5m DQA035 Lsi-Lastem (Italy)

Snow depth - Not Measured

Incoming shortwave radiation – 2m CM6B Kipp&Zonen (The Netherlands)

Outgoing shortwave radiation –Not measured.

Incoming longwave radiation – Not measured.

Outgoing longwave radiation – Not measured.

Net radiation (derived) (2 m)

Skin temperature - Not measured

Incoming Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR) - Not measured.

Outgoing Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR) - Not measured.
Surface meteorological station at Urdukas (click for full resolution):
METEOROLOGICAL TOWER INSTRUMENTATION AND DESCRIPTION:
No data of this type available at this station. FLUX INSTRUMENTATION AND
DESCRIPTION:

Sensible Heat Flux Not measured

Latent Heat Flux Not measured

CO2 Flux Not measured

Soil Heat Flux (5 cm depth; Soil Heat Flux DPE260 Lsi-Lastem (Italy)
SOIL INSTRUMENTATION AND DESCRIPTION:

Soil Temperature: -5 cm; -20 cm DLA400 Lsi-Lastem (Italy)

Soil Moisture: -5 cm HMS9000 Sdec (France)
RADIOSONDE INSTRUMENTATION AND DESCRIPTION:
No data of this type available at this station.
Site References
Web:
www.evk2cnr.org
Literature:
Archer D. R. 2001. The climate and hydrologoy of northern Pakistan with respect to assessment
of flood risk to hydropower schemes, research for GTZ/WAPDA
Baudo R., G. Tartari and E. Vuillermoz. 2007. Mountains witnesses of global changes. Research in
the Himalaya and Karakoram: SHARE-Asia project. Elsevier, Development in Earth Surface
Processes, 10: 342 pp.
Mihalcea, C., C. Mayer, G. Diolaiuti, C. D’agata, C. Smiraglia, A. Lambrecht, E. Vuillermoz and G.
Tartari. 2008. Spatial distribution of debris thickness and melting from remote-sensing and
meteorological data, at debris-covered Baltoro glacier, Karakoram, Pakistan. Annals of Glaciology,
48: 49-57.
Mihalcea, C., C. Mayer, G. Diolaiuti, A. Lambrecht, C. Smiraglia and G. Tartari. 2006. Ice ablation
and meteorological conditions on the debris-covered area of Baltoro glacier, Karakoram, Pakistan.
Ann. Glaciol., 43, 292–300.
Singh P., Ramashastri K.S., Kumar N. 1995. Topographic influences on precipitation distribution
in different ranges of the Western Himalayas. Nordic Hydrology
26, S. 259–284
Wake C.P. 1987. Snow accumulation studies in the central Karakoram. Proceedings of the Eastern
Snow Conference North America 44th Annual Meeting, S. 19–33
Presentations:
 Tartari, G., E. Vuillermoz, P. Bonasoni, E. Manfredi & B. Schommer. 2009. High Altitude
environmental monitoring: the SHARE project and CEOP-HE. European Geosciences Union
General Assembly 2009, Vienna, Austria, 19 – 24 April 2009.
 Schommer, B., C. Belotti, E. Vuillermoz & G. Tartari. 2008. The Ev-K2-CNR Contribution to
mountain ecosystem conservation and the study of climate change. International Mountain
Biodiversity Conference, Kathmandu, Nepal, 15 – 17 November 2008.
 Tartari, G. 2008. Ev-K2-CNR Climatic studies at CEOP Reference sites in Himalaya and
Karakorum Regions. International Conference on Hydrology and Climate Change in
Mountainous Areas, Kathmandu, Nepal, 15 – 17 November.
 Vuillermoz, E., L. Bertolani, C. Smiraglia, G.P. Verza, G. Tartari, A. Marinoni & P. Bonasoni.
2006. SHARE- Asia Automatic Weather Station Network: an integral component for climate
research in the Karakorum – Himalayas region. I International Workshop on Energy and
Water Cycle over the Tibetan Plateau, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lhasa, Tibet, China, 312 September, 2006.
 Tartari, G., E. Vuillermoz, G.P. Verza & B. Schommer. 2005. SHARE-ASIA Project.
Meteoclimatic resear- ch in Himalaya and Karakorum. CEOP/IGWCO Joint Meeting, Tokyo,
Japan, 28 February – 4 March, 2005.
Data Sets and Documentation:
 2007 Data Sets and Documentatio