The significance of mountain glaciers as sentinels of climate and environmental change

Abstract

Mountain glaciers are transient hydrologic reservoirs persisting at the habitable extremes of Earth that both document and respond to climate change. They withhold water in solid phase from other reservoirs and ultimately impact sea levels. Moreover, they are valued resources with economic and cultural significance for human societies living below them. They also preserve histories of past climates. Yet, when climate change forces glaciers to lose mass, the water and suspended matter flow downstream with various impacts. Profoundly, current glacier and environmental changes are now accelerating and being propelled by human activity. Diverse consequences of these changes are emerging, and many are negative for society. Nevertheless, these changes coincide with a time in human history during which science is able to observe changes with unprecedented detail. Geography has a key role to play in analyzing the patterns and impacts of mountain glacier changes over multiple spatial and temporal scales and involving an integrated approach that draws on different disciplines and innovative technology to account for interactions between multiple spheres of the Earth System.

Global Disappearance of Tropical Mountain Glaciers: Observations, Causes, and Challenges

“…Many studies have documented the ongoing disappearance of tropical glaciers worldwide [223,224]. While the retreat in in some regions of South America is still relatively slow [2], the glaciers in East Africa [15] and Australasia [20,22] are close to extinction.…”

Rewriting conservation landscapes: protected areas and glacial retreat in the high Andes

“…It is therefore no coincidence that glaciers have so often been celebrated in paintings, photography, poetry, and prose (Carey 2007a). They stand as sentinels of global climate change (Mark and Fernández 2017) The title suggests a shift in park management visions from the likes of Aldo Leopold and other founding figures, drawing park management concerns to wider landscapes, and wider temporal horizons and uncertain futures (see also Smith, Karosic, and Smith 2015). Concerns for climate change impacts on protected areas are not limited to the US.…”

“…Crapanzano 2004): space is visibly altered, but time also takes on a new shape. In the Cordillera Blanca, climate change is a deeply felt reality (Baraër et al 2012, Bradley et al 2006, Carey et al 2014, Chevallier et al 2011, Rasmussen 2015, 2016a, Mark et al 2015, Mark and Fernández 2017, Viviroli et al 2011, Vuille et al 2003, Vuille et al 2008, Vuille et al 2018. As glaciers retreat, the biophysical changes in water availability, water flow, species up-migration and species extinction restructure agricultural and social practices.…”

Does glacial retreat impact benthic chironomid communities? A case study from Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

“…Temperatures in the western USA have steadily increased over the past few decades and have amplified the rate at which glaciers and permafrost are melting in alpine areas [14]. The addition of this cold, silt-enriched water into alpine lakes will impact the timing of lake stratification [29], increase turbidity, decrease optical transparency [53], and alter the water chemistry [41] of these alpine lakes. Studies indicate that lakes receiving glacial meltwater have up to 200× more nitrogen than those lakes that only receive snowmelt [9,47,50,74].…”