To view SnowCloudMetrics.app where this was originally hosted, click here. Eric A. Sproles, Ruan L. Crumley, Anne W. Nolin, Eugene Mar and Juan Ignacio Lopez Moreno Abstract: We tested the efficacy and skill of SnowCloud, a prototype web-based, cloud-computing framework for snow mapping and hydrologic modeling. SnowCloud is the overarching framework that functions within the [...]
"As global environmental change continues to accelerate and intensify, science and society are turning to transdisciplinary approaches to facilitate transitions to sustainability. Modeling is increasingly used as a technological tool to improve our understanding of social-ecological systems (SES), encourage collaboration and learning, and facilitate decision-making. This study improves our understanding of how SES models are [...]
Mountain social-ecological systems (MtSES) provide crucial ecosystem services to over half of humanity. However, populations living in these highly varied regions are now confronted by global change. It is critical that they are able to anticipate change to strategically manage resources and avoid potential conflict. Yet, planning for sustainable, equitable transitions for the future is [...]
Knowledge coproduction that draws on local and scientific knowledge presents opportunities for more holistic understanding of environmental change. We describe our use of a multiple-evidence based approach to investigate the causes and consequences of environmental change in a community-protected grassland and its surrounding landscape in the Ethiopian highlands. We explore the interaction of biophysical change [...]
Glacial lakes are rapidly growing in response to climate change and glacier retreat. The role of these lakes as terrestrial storage for glacial meltwater is currently unknown and not accounted for in global sea level assessments. Here, we map glacier lakes around the world using 254,795 satellite images and use scaling relations to estimate that [...]
Mountain social‐ecological systems (MtSES) are vital to humanity, providing ecosystem services to over half the planet's human population. Despite their importance, there has been no global assessment of threats to MtSES, even as they face unprecedented challenges to their sustainability. With survey data from 57 MtSES sites worldwide, we test a conceptual model of the [...]
While a group of mountain interdisciplinary scientists were exploring and discussing mountain paradoxes, the 2015 Earthquakes devastated much of Nepal. We partnered with practitioners on the ground in Nepal to explore the relationship between the mountain paradoxes and the challenges they create for disaster risk reduction in the mountains. We also learned from experiences in [...]
Jaeger et al. (2017, PNAS) find water scarcity amid abundance using human–natural system models. Through a detailed coupled human–natural system model of the Willamette River Basin in Oregon, USA, the authors identify how climate change and socioeconomic growth will alter the availability and use of water in coming decades. Results demonstrate how water scarcity varies [...]
In Yang et al. (2018, Ecosphere), the authors conduct the first synthesis across warming experiments on the Tibetan Plateau. They found that warming increased aboveground net primary production (ANPP) at sites with permafrost, but ANPP decreased with warming at non-permafrost sites. ANPP responded more negatively to warming under drier conditions, due to both annual drought [...]
AAAG special issue focused on mountains, with several Mtn Sentinels co-authors. Glacierized mountains are often referred to as our world’s water towers because glaciers both store water over time and regulate seasonal stream flow, releasing runoff during dry seasons when societies most need water. Ice loss thus has the potential to affect human societies in [...]