The Joint Body on the Status of Mountain Snow Cover welcomes expressions of interest from individuals with relevant expertise willing to actively contribute to one or several of the Joint Body's Work Package objectives. The deadline has been extended to 24 June 2022.

Climate change is impacting the amount and distribution of mountain snow cover over space and time. Knowledge of these changes is of great importance for research and practice, not least given the important role that snow plays for mountain ecosystems, natural hazards, and tourism, as well as providing a source of water for ecosystems and humans. Despite the high relevance of snow in mountain regions, an inventory for mountain snow cover and the underlying processes comparable on a global scale are still lacking. Even regional inventories are strongly limited to a few well-monitored mountain ranges, such as in the U.S. Rockies and the European Alps.

The Joint Body on the Status of Mountain Snow Cover (JB-SMSC), launched by the International Association of Cryospheric Sciences (IACS) in collaboration with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the Mountain Research Initiative (MRI), aims to address these knowledge gaps by providing robust information on mountain snow cover changes at a global scale in the past few decades through the compilation and analysis of existing data (covering data from stations, remote sensing, and model simulations) at sufficiently high resolution.

In addition, the JB-SMSC also aims to better understand processes of accumulation and ablation based on existing modelling and observational studies. Another important objective is to provide open access to snow data for the benefit of the research community, and thereby contribute to operational capacity building.

The JB-SMSC is organised around four key Work Packages (WPs), namely:

WP1: Mountain snow data quality control and homogenization for use in climatology and hydrology
WP2: Status of snow cover multi-decadal changes in mountain regions of the world
WP3: Snow accumulation processes
WP4: Snow ablation processes – research gaps in mountain snow modelling

Download the full approved 2021 proposal here.

In order to co-design and carry out the specific tasks and sub-tasks that support the planned deliberables for these WPs, a call for expressions of interest is made for individuals with the relevant expertise to join and contribute to the JB-SMSC. The (extended) deadline for expressions of interest is 24 June 2022.

"We are of course very happy to see the MRI as part of this collaboration and we welcome the opportunity for the MRI network members working on snow to be involved, too," says MRI Executive Director Carolina Adler. 

Submit Expression of Interest.

Find out more on the JB-SMSC website.


 

Cover image by Silvana Lingg.

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