Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Afghanistan in the Future


The fear of climate change has been getting more and more attention over the past two decades, but I believe that this has happened before in Earth’s history as part of its ever changing environment.  Geographers have determined that the Earth does in fact go through a cycle of heating and cooling, and the Earth is currently moving out of a cold period.  Part of transitioning to a warmer period is the melting of the Earth’s glaciers, which is happening in places like Afghanistan.  With the retreating glaciers in mind I will hypothesize on what will happen to Afghanistan’s geography over the next 1,000 years, 10,000 years, and 100,000 years.

Hypothesis:  1,000 years is a very long time in regards to a human’s life time, but when it comes to Earth’s life time, 1,000 years isn’t such a big deal.  I believe there will still be significant changes in places like Afghanistan, and one of the greatest changes will be the melting of Afghanistan’s glaciers in the Wakhan Corridor and in other regions of the Hindu Kush.  In 1,000 years most of the 30 glaciers in the Wakhan Corridor will be gone, with maybe one or two remaining, but those will be gone soon.  Glacial lakes will form high in the mountains close to where the glacier had stopped and started to recede.  There will be very few areas of snow, called “snow cups”, that last year round.  The streams that carry the winter run off, that the Afghans rely on for irrigation, will grow into much larger and quicker moving streams due to the addition of the glacial runoff.  The valleys that benefit from the runoff water will see an increase of vegetation, for a short time before the water disappears completely.

Currently 28 of the 30 glaciers in the Wakhan Corridor are receding at an average of 36 feet per year.[1]  Even at this rate it would still take almost 500 years for some of those 30 glaciers to melt completely due to their enormous size.  The increased runoff will keep the river valleys green, but as they do now these streams and rivers will eventually evaporate in the salt flats of western Afghanistan. 

 


Arrows are pointing at new Glacial Lakes in the Hindu Kush, formed from glacial melting between 2000 and 2007
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Hypothesis:  In 10,000 years Afghanistan’s geography will have significantly changed, and it’ll be for the worst.  By this time Afghanistan’s glaciers will only be a memory, and along with them all the water the glaciers held.  Mass Wasting and erosion will dominate the more semi arid regions, while the large deserts will continue to be deserts.  Despite the Mass Wasting and erosion the mountains will be taller and more jagged than they already are.  There will be very few plant and animal species able to live in this environment.

Because the Hindu Kush Mountains are mostly granite, grus will flush down the steep mountain sides, leaving behind large “stone gardens” of rounded and smoothed core stones.  With the last millimeters of moisture, Frost weathering and Expansion and Contraction weathering will contribute to the erosion.  Because of the mountains high mineral content, Salt weathering will also take place.  The Hindu Kush was formed around 70 million years ago when the Indo-Australian Plate collided with the Eurasian Plate.[2]  The convergent boundary formed by this collision will continue to push the mountains higher while erosion makes the peaks steeper and more jagged.

 

Hypothesis:  I can’t begin to understand how long 100,000 years is, and I don’t think any humans will be around to see what Afghanistan looks like in that amount of time.  There will be no moisture of any kind, no vegetation, and no organism will be able to survive in the environment.  Extremely tall spires will stretch 30,000 feet into the sky surrounded by sand for as far as you can see.  So, kind of like the landscape for the 1984 movie “Dune” mixed with the Atacama Desert. 
It’s a cynical way to look at the future of Afghanistan, but who really knows for sure what will happen in 100,000 years.  We do know that the glaciers are melting, temperatures are getting higher, and less moisture is falling from the skies.  Because of erosion, mass wasting and lack of water in the future, Earth will look more like Mars, let’s just hope that the human species has found a way to create an ozone around mars so we can live there until Earth changes cycles again and once again becomes inhabitable.

     


[1] Haritashya,; Bishop, Shroder, Andrew, Bush, Bulley (2009). "Space-based assessment of glacier fluctuations in the Wakhan Pamir, Afghanistan" (PDF). Climate Change 94 (1–2): 5–18.

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