The American Geophysical Union (AGU) General Assembly 2021 took place December 13-17. MRI Executive Director Carolina Adler, SLC members Bryan Mark and Shawn Marshall, and Scientific Project Officer Gabrielle Vance convened the session 'Global Environmental Change in Mountain Social-Ecological Systems.'

Mountains are complex social-ecological systems and natural laboratories in which to explore global change. The MRI's AGU session invited contributions examining past, present, and future environmental change and associated societal impacts in global mountain environments. The session was open to measurement and modelling studies of mountain climate, cryosphere, ecology, hazards, and hydrology, including coupled societal resources and risks. Mountain terrain is difficult to resolve in climate models, and many areas of the world lack high-elevation monitoring infrastructure. We particularly welcomed contributions addressing such knowledge gaps, including high-elevation monitoring efforts, measurements across altitudinal gradients, climate downscaling strategies, and remote sensing innovations. 

Session highlights included an invited eLightning presentation from Nick Pepin, the lead of the MRI's Elevation-Dependent Climate Change Working Group, on 'Enhanced Climate Changes in Mountain Regions: High Elevation Trends in Temperature and Precipitation and Their Comparison with Lowlands.' Anubha Aggarwal, a member of the MRI's Mentoring and Training Program in IPCC Processes for Early Career Mountain Researchers, shared 'Adaptation to Climate Change Induced Water Stress in Major Glacierized Mountain Regions.'

The co-conveners would like to thank all those who contributed to the session, listed below:

Enhanced Climate Changes in Mountain Regions: High Elevation Trends in Temperature and Precipitation and Their Comparison with Lowlands
Nicholas Pepin, Enrico Arnone, Andreas Gobiet, Klaus Haslinger, Sven Kotlarski, Caludia Notarnicola, Elisa Palazzi, Petra Seibert, Stefano Serafin, Wolfgang Schoener, Silvia Terzago, James Thornton, Mathias F Vuille, Carolina Adler

Adaptation to Climate Change Induced Water Stress in Major Glacierized Mountain Regions
Anubha Aggarwal, Holger Frey, Graham McDowell, Fabian Drenkhan, Marcus Neusser, Adina Racoviteanu, Martin Hoelzle

Observations of Winter Ablation on Glaciers in the Mount Everest Region in 2020–2021  
Prajjwal Panday, Mauri Pelto, Tom Kenneth Roger Matthews, Baker Perry

A complexity perspective on flood risk change
Andreas Zischg 

Integrative Remote Sensing to Promote Environmental Discovery: The RMBL Spatial Data Platform
Ian Breckheimer, Benjamin Blonder, Rosemary W H Carroll, William K Petry, Christopher J Still, Ian Billick

Vegetation Indices as Proxies for spatio-temporal Variations in Water Availability in the Rio Santa Valley (Peruvian Andes)
Lorenz Hänchen,Cornelia Klein, Fabien Maussion, Wolfgang Gurgiser, Pierluigi Stefano Calanca, Georg Wohlfahrt

Earth and field observations underpin metapopulation dynamics in complex landscapes: near-term study on Carabids
Jonathan Giezendanner, Damiano Pasetto, Javier Perez-Saez, Andrea Rinaldo, Cristiana Cerrato, Ramona Viterbi, Silvia Terzago, Elisa Palazzi


Image by Oliver Wiedmann.

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