Global News

Research provides new insight on mountain glacier–derived water resource systems, impacting up to 1.9 billion people globally.

Scientists from around the world have assessed the planet’s 78 mountain glacier-based water systems and, for the first time, ranked them in order of their importance to adjacent lowland communities, as well as their vulnerability to future environmental and socioeconomic changes. These systems, known as mountain water towers, store and transport water via glaciers, snow packs, lakes, and streams, thereby supplying invaluable water resources to 1.9 billion people globally—roughly a quarter of the world’s population.

New research published in the journal PLOS ONE finds that rising temperatures are causing perennial snowbanks in Mongolia's Sayan Mountains to melt – putting the people and animals they support at risk. 

Deep in the Sayan Mountains of northern Mongolia, patches of ice rest year-round in the crooks between hills.

Locals in this high tundra call the perennial snowbanks munkh mus, or eternal ice. They’re central to lives of the region’s traditional reindeer herders, who depend on the snowy patches for clean drinking water and to cool down their hoofed charges in summer months.

Now, a new study led by archaeologist William Taylor suggests that this eternal ice, and the people and animals it supports, may be at risk because of soaring global temperatures.

Glaciologists at ETH Zurich and the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow, and Landscape Research WSL assessed the global water storage and hydropower potential that could be freed up in future as glaciers melt in response to climate change.

Global warming will cause substantial glacier retreat for the majority of the world’s glaciers over the next few decades. This will not only spell the end for some magnificent natural monuments, but also importantly affect the water cycle. In high-​mountain regions, these ice masses act as reservoirs feeding water to large river systems, and balancing seasonal discharges.

The Tibetan Plateau – known as the 'Asian water tower' because of its huge water storage capacity in glaciers – has a profound impact on local and downstream ecosystems. However, it is a challenge to establish and maintain in situ observations there due to the complex terrain. Thanks to satellite technology, scientists may have found a substitute.

In sharp contrast with the importance of the 'Asian water tower', sufficient in situ observations in the Tibetan Plateau have been lacking due to the complex terrain. Satellite and reanalysis datasets may offer an alternative, as outlined in new research from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Palaeontologists look to the fossil record to come up with a new strategy to save the endangered mountain pygmy-possum from becoming a climate change casualty.

Scientists have come up with a radical plan to save the critically endangered mountain pygmy-possum: take some from their alpine habitat and introduce them to a warmer, lowland rainforest environment.

In a new study published in Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions B, researchers from University of New South Wales (UNSW) Sydney use fossil evidence going back 25 million years to argue that the mountain pygmy-possum (Burramys parvus) is a species living on the fringes of what its biological ancestors would have enjoyed as a more temperate, less extreme environment.

The fabled use of canaries in coal mines as an early warning of carbon monoxide stemmed from the birds’ extreme sensitivity to toxic conditions compared to humans. In that vein, some avian species can indicate environmental distress brought on by overdevelopment, habitat loss, and rising global temperatures before an ecosystem has collapsed. Not all bird species, however, respond to environmental disturbances equally.

Researchers from Princeton University set out to help determine the characteristics that make certain species more sensitive to environmental pressures. They recently reported in the journal Ecography that a bird species’ ability to adapt to seasonal temperature changes may be one factor in whether it can better withstand environmental disruption. The study focused on how temperature changes and the conversion of forests to agricultural land affected 135 bird species in the Himalayas. Species living in the seasonal western Himalayas adapted to deforestation more readily than birds native to the tropical eastern Himalayas.

Glaciers are melting in most areas across the globe. However, the speed at which tropical glaciers in the Peruvian Andes are retreating is particularly alarming. This is according to a detailed investigation of all Peruvian mountain ranges conducted by a research team from Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, which found a drastic reduction of almost 30 percent in the area covered by glaciers between 2000 and 2016. In a paper recently published in the open-access journal The Cryospherethe research team also observed that El Niño activities had a significant effect on the state of the glaciers. 

Tropical glaciers exist around the equator at altitudes of above 4000 metres. Peru is home to 92 percent of all areas covered by glaciers in the tropics. Due to their geographical location, tropical glaciers are particularly sensitive to fluctuations and changes in the climate. In certain mountain ranges in the Andes, such as the Cordillera Blanca, glaciers are reported to have been retreating at an accelerated rate since the 1980s. Measurements of the mass balance of individual glaciers have also shown a significant loss of ice.

Achieving human well-being and eradicating poverty for all: reaching this goal by 2030 is still possible, but only through a fundamental change in the relationship between people and nature and concerted global efforts to reduce social inequalities. This is according to the 2019 UN Global Sustainable Development Report, released earlier this month.

The UN Global Sustainable Development Report – The Future is Now: Science for Achieving Sustainable Development – evaluates progress on the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, and is the first report of its kind since the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted four years ago. It was drafted by an independent group of scientists, co-chaired by Peter Messerli, Director of the Centre for Development and Environment, and Endah Murniningtyas, former Deputy Minister for Natural Resources in Indonesia. 

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