The natural upliftment of the Pir Panjal Range has contributed to convert the Kashmir Valley weather into its current Mediterranean type climate a few million years ago, showing a new study.
Nicknames as East Switzerland, today’s Kashmir experiences mild summer and hard, wet winter. The main source of repetition of ground water and waterbody in the valley is caused by snow or rainfall during the winter associated with the passing streams of Western disturbances. Winter in the valley peaks between December-January.
“The upliftment of the Pir Panjal range, also known as the low Himalayas, created an organic barrier, which disrupted the humid monsoon winds filled with moisture by reaching the valley. Gradually, it led to the establishment of a Mediterranean-type climate,” the latest study was published in the Journal of Palography.
A group of researchers from the Birbal Sahni Institute of Paliocensese (BSIP) and the Department of Earth Sciences of the University of Kashmir used leaf sediment from carava structures in the valley to re -create the pelioclaimatic past. In the last four million years, this basin has been fed with a fluvial-glacial-lassin sediment, which has been studied by the research group. The study teams deployed climate leaf analysis multi -verament program and co -existence approach in this work.
The Kashmir Valley estimates that about 4 million years ago, due to the natural upliftment of Pir Panjal Mountain Range, also known as a low Himalayas. The Kashmir basin is an oval, bowl -shaped depression, with a relatively flat basin floor. It measures about 140 km in length and width at a distance of 40 km and covers an area of about 5000 square kilometers in the north -western region of the Himalayas.
In the process of upliftment, it blocked the ancient Himalayan drainage system and formed a huge lake. With the continuous uplift of the Pir Panjal range, the lake gradually shrunk and more and more moved to the Himalayas.
The study expanded that till 1.95 million years ago, there was a strong seasonal in the valley once. After this, the quick growth of Pir Panjal stopped the winds of the south -west monsoon from reaching the valley. Monthly rainfall was from 10 mm to 220 mm, with the annual medium around 1230 mm. The group calculated the average annual temperature of the valley, which was about 18.1 ° C and the cold month meant temperature 11.1 ° C.
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Other recent studies of the rainfall variability of Kashmir regions in recent decades showed that about 72 percent of the annual rainfall came from Western disturbances, while the remaining 28 percent was contributed by the Indian summer monsoon. Furthermore, the summer monsoon had more influence towards South Kashmir, while North Kashmir was mostly affected by Western disturbances.
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