English: Snow lay heavily across the mountains of Tajikistan in late May 2018. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this true-color image of the Pamir Mountains on May 25.

About ninety-three percent of Tajikistan’s landscape folds into the high elevations of rugged mountain ranges. The Alay Mountains lay in the north and the Pamirs stretch across the south of the country. These mountains of Tajikistan are famed among hikers and climbers for their height and beauty, as they containing alpine peaks and glaciers along with pastoral valleys that support agriculture and farm-based communities.

Because of the high elevation of these mountains – Ismail Somoni ranks as the 15th tallest mountain in Asia and the 50th tallest mountain on Earth – the changes of a warming world are already becoming markedly evident to residents. According to an article published by Earth and Space Science News (EOS.org) in April 2016, the shift in climate has affected not only subsistence farming and herding in these mountains, but also has disrupted the centuries-old calendar used by some Pamiri natives.

According to the article: “Local timekeepers name each new seasonal development after a part of the body, beginning with the toenail, then moving upward to the shin, the thigh, the intestines, the heart, and so on, until reaching the head. Arrival at the head coincides with the end of spring and a pause in counting. When the first cue of summer is observed, the counting sequence restarts, but this time from the head downward. Timekeepers rely on natural events—the nascence of a flower, arrival of a migratory bird, movement of fish, breakup of lake ice—as the indicators of seasonal change, not simply the number of days since significant positions of the Sun, Moon, and stars.”

With the shifting climate, glaciers and snowpack have been reported to melt more quickly, resulting in higher water levels in rivers and lakes. The changes in moisture and temperature patterns drive earlier planting seasons and even have caused a change in the type of crop able to be grown in some areas. As the natural world changes, the traditional cues that move the Pamiri peoples through their seasons, cycles, and even celebrations no longer match natural phenomenon very well. Studies are underway to try to develop a new calendar that will more closely match the passing of the seasons in the lofty Pamir Mountains.