Thomas L. Delworth Moetasim Ashfaq Sergey Malyshev Paul C.D. Milly Sarah B. Kapnick 2014 <p><span>The high mountains of Asia, including the Karakoram, Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau, combine to form a region of perplexing hydroclimate changes. Glaciers have exhibited mass stability or even expansion in the Karakoram region</span>^{<a id="ref-link-1" title="Bolch, T. et al. The state and fate of Himalayan glaciers. Science 366, 310-314 (2012)." href="http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v7/n11/full/ngeo2269.html#ref1" data-mce-href="http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v7/n11/full/ngeo2269.html#ref1">1</a>, <a id="ref-link-2" title="Hewitt, K. The Karakoram anomaly? Glacier expansion and the /`elevation effect,/' Karakoram Himalaya. Mt. Res. Dev. 25, 332-340 (2005)." href="http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v7/n11/full/ngeo2269.html#ref2" data-mce-href="http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v7/n11/full/ngeo2269.html#ref2">2</a>, <a id="ref-link-3" title="Gardelle, J., Berthier, E. &amp; Arnaud, Y. Slight mass gain of Karakoram glaciers in the early twenty-first century. Nature Geosci. 5, 322-325 (2012)." href="http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v7/n11/full/ngeo2269.html#ref3" data-mce-href="http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v7/n11/full/ngeo2269.html#ref3">3</a>}<span>, contrasting with glacial mass loss across the nearby Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau</span>^{<a id="ref-link-4" title="Bolch, T. et al. The state and fate of Himalayan glaciers. Science 366, 310-314 (2012)." href="http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v7/n11/full/ngeo2269.html#ref1" data-mce-href="http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v7/n11/full/ngeo2269.html#ref1">1</a>, <a id="ref-link-5" title="Kang, S. et al. Review of climate and cryospheric change in the Tibetan Plateau. Environ. Res. Lett. 5, 015101 (2010)." href="http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v7/n11/full/ngeo2269.html#ref4" data-mce-href="http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v7/n11/full/ngeo2269.html#ref4">4</a>}<span>, a pattern that has been termed the Karakoram anomaly. However, the remote location, complex terrain and multi-country fabric of high-mountain Asia have made it difficult to maintain longer-term monitoring systems of the meteorological components that may have influenced glacial change. Here we compare a set of high-resolution climate model simulations from 1861 to 2100 with the latest available observations to focus on the distinct seasonal cycles and resulting climate change signatures of Asia’s high-mountain ranges. We find that the Karakoram seasonal cycle is dominated by non-monsoonal winter precipitation, which uniquely protects it from reductions in annual snowfall under climate warming over the twenty-first century. The simulations show that climate change signals are detectable only with long and continuous records, and at specific elevations. Our findings suggest a meteorological mechanism for regional differences in the glacier response to climate&nbsp;warming.</span></p> application/pdf 10.1038/ngeo2269 en Nature Snowfall less sensitive to warming in Karakoram than in Himalayas due to a unique seasonal cycle article