Identifying mechanisms driving spatially heterogeneous glacial mass-balance patterns in
the Himalaya, including the 'Karakoram anomaly', is crucial for understanding regional water
resource trajectories. Streamflows dependent on glacial meltwater are strongly positively
correlated with Karakoram summer air temperatures, which show recent anomalous cooling.
We explain these temperature and streamflow anomalies through a circulation system—the
Karakoram vortex—identified using a regional circulation metric that quantifies the relative …