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Worldwide, glaciers are shrinking. In contrast, the Karakoram glaciers seem to be stagnating or even growing – a mysterious phenomenon termed the Karakoram anomaly. The Karakoram anomaly is one of the biggest mysteries of glacial science, which could be exacerbating the accumulation of glacial melt-water, and increasing the risk of catastrophic glacial floods.

The Karakoram Anomaly Project (KAP) - lead by Romanian Environmental geoscientist, climber and explorer Sergiu Jiduc - was designed to investigate this unusual situation.The team sent in a report of their research expedition to Pakistan last summer, which makes for excellent reading.

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Very interesting, thanks. Good to see something a bit more unusual on here for a change.

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Really interesting article, some great photos as well.

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Nice to see something a bit different on UKC. I do have one small complaint though - I can I use UKC to avoid work, when it includes articles related to my work? Seriously though, brilliant article.

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That was very good - interesting and inspiring. Thanks UKC and Sergiu!

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Very interesting to read the article about the research and your climb. I went through Shimshal and spent 6 weeks climbing around the Khurdopin glacier in 1987 with 6 friends, just as we finished university. There was no road to Shimshal then and it was a long haul from Pasu. Young and naive and with 2-3 alpine seasons each we struggled to cope with the shear scale of the mountains and the enormous glaciers and failed to do much climbing. Shimshal was a green oasis and friendly faces and inquisitive children. Great memories!

In reply to UKC Articles:
Very interesting - although I had thought that we are now fairly sure that advancing glaciers are a prelude to quite a rapid retreat and are not a "good sign" or even, really, an anomaly.
The process as I understand goes along along the lines of - melt water lubricates the rock/ice interface, allowing for more repaid advance of the glacial snout and reducing the ice thickness allowing for more rapid warming of the overall ice mass and so on....

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Oh - and really great pictures.

In reply to Richard Osborne:

Hi Richard just been reading your AAJ report from that trip. Will drop you a mail after this if that's ok as interested to know where exactly the peak you climbed was. Any help gratefully appreciated.

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i need to go there