Mountain, Cai expedition to K2 to study the Karakoram ice

The objective of the expedition is to study for the first time the snow and the area of ​​the Godwin-Austen glacier, at the foot of K2, crucial for the balance of the Indian subcontinent

BOLOGNA – An Italian-Pakistani team will study for the first time snow and ice of the Karakoram to understand the impacts of climate change on the region and prepare a future mission Ice Memory on the Godwin-Austen Glacier, at the foot of K2:is one of the ambitious initiatives that are part of the K2-70 project of the Italian Alpine Club dedicated to the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the first ascent in 1954.Ice Memory is an international research project recognized by UNESCO with a dual objective: collect and preserve ice samples taken from glaciers around the world which could disappear or be greatly reduced due to global warming.

Italy is among the leaders of the project, under the guidance of the Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council (Isp-Cnr) and the Ca' Foscari University of Venice, together with the Fondation Université Grenoble Alpes).For the first time, Italian and Pakistani mountaineers - Federica Mingolla, Silvia Loreggian, Anna Torretta, Cristina Piolini, Samina Baig, Amina Bano, Nadeema Sahar, Samana Rahim together with Lorenza Pratali, mountaineer and researcher at the Cnr Institute of Physiology, expert in mountain medicine - they will leave together for an expedition that wants to leave an important mark in the history of Italian mountaineering, not only for the sporting feat but above all for the human experience, the value and the legacy that represent the heart of this project .And the CAI wishes to leave an important legacy because celebrating the conquest of K2 also means remembering its scientific value.

In 1954 Ardito Desio led, in addition to the mountaineers, a research group on the geography, geology and topography of the area.Today, 70 years later and on the occasion of World Earth Day - the largest environmental event on the planet, in which all the citizens of the world come together to celebrate the Earth and promote its protection - the K2-70 expedition reiterates the importance of scientific exploration and supports a team made up of Italian and Pakistani scientists who will work on the Godwin-Austen glacier.The aim is to study for the first time the snow and ice of that region so crucial for the balance of the Indian subcontinent.

The mission, which will depart from Italy in mid-June and will last approximately 40 days, with 10 days of field research activity, is organized by the Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council and by the Ca' Foscari University of Venice, both co-founding bodies of the Ice Memory Foundation, together with EvK2CNR, with the support of the Environmental Protection Agency of Gilgit-Baltistan, Ca' Foscari University Foundation of Venice, with the contribution of the CAI and the Ministry of University and Research.The main objective of the scientific expedition is to evaluate the feasibility of deep drilling in the Pakistani Karakorum.In this area only the Guliya glacier in northern Tibet has been drilled in the past.

The team will extract some ice cores superficial arriving up to 12-15 meters deep in the highest portion of the Godwin-Austen ice, at an altitude between 5,500 and 6,000 metres.Furthermore, the temperature in the glacier will be measured, snow samples will be collected to check for the presence of contaminants and tests will be carried out geophysical investigations to understand the conformation of the terrain and the glacier.Thanks to the international Ice Memory project, this exceptional ice sample containing information on the climate and the Himalayan environment of the past could be preserved in Antarctica in an ice 'library' designed for future generations of scientists, who will no longer have access to glaciers as we see them today, due to climate change.
“This year we celebrate the 70th anniversary of the K2 expedition by combining, as happened in 1954, scientific research with the ascent of the eight mountaineers,” states Antonio Montani, general president of the Italian Alpine Club, organizer of the K2-70 project.“The reduction of glaciers is an increasingly pressing issue and the CAI is at the forefront, alongside science, to raise awareness of the severity of the climate crisis and to raise awareness among institutions of the need to place attention to the environment and sustainability at the center of their policies".

The situation of the Karakorum glaciers "is certainly very different from that which appeared to the eyes of Ardito Desio and his boys, back in 1954.And this is why, today perhaps more than then, it is essential to continue the study of these extraordinary environments, true sentinels of current global changes", continues Carlo Barbante, director of the Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council, professor at Ca' Foscari University of Venice and vice-president of the Ice Memory Foundation.The expedition project is organized by Cai with EvK2CNR, an association that deals with scientific and technological research at high and very high altitudes, which also organizes the mission:“Ardito Desio founded EvK2Cnr 35 years ago, which since then has worked to implement his scientific ideas in the Karakorum and Himalayas with benefits also for the sustainable development of local populations.Together with the United Nations Agency UNDP, thanks to the support of the Italian Agency for Cooperation and Development, in the coming months EvK2Cnr will publish the inventory of over 13,200 glaciers in Pakistan, the most important freshwater resource on the Asian continent.This is the present.The meeting with Ice Memory is a formidable opportunity for understand the climate of the past and to look to the future of these regions” declares Agostino Da Polenza, president of EvK2Cnr and expedition leader:on June 15th she will leave with the athletes for Pakistan for the great climb, arriving at base camp on June 29th where mountaineering activities and acclimatization will begin, and then attempting the summit in the second half of July.

The group will be led by Jacopo Gabrieli, Cnr researcher, and by the mountain guide Paolo Conz, together with two technicians from the Gilgit-Baltistan-Environmental Protection Agency, who have been collaborating on the Pakistan glacier for years with the support of EvK2Cnr, and Maurizio Gallo, engineer and mountain guide of EvK2Cnr.It will operate for about ten days upstream from the K2 advanced base camp, in a remote camp set up specifically for scientists at an altitude of approximately 5,600 metres.The research will take place in an area of ​​approximately 20 kilometers between 5,500 and 6,000 meters above sea level.