7. Future mountains with low-to-no snow and ice

Details

  • Full Title

    Future mountains with low-to-no snow and ice – a community perspective

  • Scheduled

  • Moderated by

    Jakob Steiner, Erica Woodburn, Alan Rhoades, Fabien Maussion, Areidy Beltran, Silvia Terzago

  • Scientific Committee Teams involved

    Several

  • Type

    Synthesis-Workshop

Description

The mountain cryosphere provides vast freshwater reservoirs critical to ecosystems and downstream communities. Yet they are harbingers of a changing climate through their sensitivity to warming.  A low-to-no snow (L2NS) future, or widespread, persistent, and deleterious snow, ice, and permafrost loss, is possible given increasing temperatures and alterations in precipitation magnitude and phase.  L2NS will impose a series of cascading hydrologic changes to the water-energy balance, impacting vegetation processes, surface and subsurface water storage, streamflow, and ultimately water-energy resources and ecosystem function. Strategies for adaptation of livelihoods, power generation, and ecosystem function post-L2NS are rarely exchanged across sectors, research communities, and mountain ranges. This session aims to bring together a diverse set of researchers and stakeholders to exchange successes and failures from regions where L2NS is or will be a future reality and discuss how to overcome uncertainties in estimating the warming level and time horizon of L2NS emergence.

Assigned Focus Sessions

ID06: Andean glaciers and their role in the high mountain water cycle

Focus Sessions

ID09: Atmospheric dynamics over cold regions in a large-scale context

Focus Sessions

ID10: Changes in Snow Cover in Mountainous Regions of the Earth

Focus Sessions

ID21: Glacier and permafrost risks in a changing climate

Focus Sessions

ID23: Glacier-atmosphere coupling in mountain environments

Focus Sessions

ID27: High Asia cryo-hydrology: processes and impacts across elevations

Focus Sessions

ID28: Highland-lowland systems in water management and resilient societies

Focus Sessions

ID46: Nature-based solutions to water-related risks in mountain regions

Focus Sessions
1. Mountain Ecosystems under Global Change