U42A:
Mountains without Permanent Snow and Ice: Current Impacts and Implications for the Future of Mountain Environments and Areas Downstream

Note: Abstract submissions to Union sessions are by invitation only.


Session ID#: 8080

Session Description:
The mountain cryosphere has declined greatly in recent decades, a trend that is expected to accelerate in the future, with a cascade of effects extending from alpine regions to lowlands. Glacier ice volume and areas with permafrost will decrease, the ratio of rain to snow will increase, and changes in the seasonality and magnitude of streamflow will occur, affecting erosion rates, sediment and nutrient flux, and the biogeochemistry of rivers, which in turn influence water quality, aquatic habitat and biotic communities. Slope failures due to loss of alpine permafrost, and outburst floods from glacier- and moraine-dammed lakes will threaten downstream populations. Many societies at low elevations depend on meltwater from glaciers and snow for many uses – potable water, irrigation, mining, hydropower, agriculture, waste disposal and recreation. All of these activities will be adversely affected as mountain-ice masses shrink and snow disappears.  This multidisciplinary session will address these potential effects.
Primary Convener:  Raymond S Bradley, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Geosciences, Amherst, MA, United States
Convener:  Lonnie G Thompson, Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, United States
Chairs:  Raymond S Bradley, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Geosciences, Amherst, MA, United States and Lonnie G Thompson, Ohio State University Main Campus, School of Earth Sciences, Columbus, OH, United States
OSPA Liaison:  Lonnie G Thompson, Ohio State University Main Campus, School of Earth Sciences, Columbus, OH, United States
Index Terms:

0702 Permafrost [CRYOSPHERE]
1621 Cryospheric change [GLOBAL CHANGE]
1813 Eco-hydrology [HYDROLOGY]
4303 Hydrological [NATURAL HAZARDS]

Abstracts Submitted to this Session:

Glacier loss and emerging hydrologic vulnerabilities in the Peruvian Andes (Invited) (78286)
Bryan G Mark, School of Earth Sciences, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, United States; Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, United States, Jeffrey M McKenzie, McGill University, Earth and Planetary Sciences, Montreal, QC, Canada, Michel Baraer, École de Technologie Supérieure, Montreal, QC, Canada, Pablo Lagos, Instituto Geofísico del Perú, Lima, Peru, Laura Lautz, Syracuse University, Syracuse, United States, Mark Carey, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, United States, Jeff Bury, University of California Santa Cruz, Environmental Studies, Santa Cruz, CA, United States, Ryan Landon Crumley, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Earth and Environment Sciences, Los Alamos, NM, United States, Oliver Wigmore, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO, United States and Lauren Dorothy Somers, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada
The Tropical Andes without Snow and Ice – Impacts, Uncertainties and Challenges Ahead (Invited) (81705)
Mathias F Vuille, University at Albany, State University of New York, Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, Albany, United States
Warming Mountains, Earlier runoff and Declining Snowpack in Western North America (Invited) (82090)
Daniel R Cayan, U.S. Geological Survey, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA, United States; Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Division of Climate, Atmospheric Sciences, and Physical Oceanography, La Jolla, United States
Glacier melt on the Third Pole (Invited) (59891)
Tandong Yao, ITP Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; CAS Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences, Beijing, China
Mountains of Central Asia in the warmer world (Invited) (59747)
Maria Shahgedanova1, Igor Severskiy2, Dauren Zhumabayev3, Zamira Usmanova4 and Vassiliy Kapitsa2, (1)University of Reading, Department of Geography and Environmental Science, Reading, United Kingdom, (2)Institute of Geography, Almaty, Kazakhstan, (3)Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan, (4)Al-farabi Kazakh National University, Almaty, Kazakhstan

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