Proposal for the Unified High Elevation Observing Platform (UHOP)
This document arose from a workshop hosted by the Mountain Research Initiative and GEO Mountains at the University of Bern, Switzerland, from 25–27 June 2023. In it, we outline a global approach for the observation of climate and weather variables across elevation gradients in the world’s mountains.
Pepin, N.C., Beneš, J., Masiokas, M., Steiner, J., Thornton, J.M. & Williamson, S.
(2024). Proposal for the Unified High Elevation Observational Platform (UHOP). Mountain Research Initiative & GEO Mountains. doi: 10.48620/77051.
Toward a Set of Essential Biodiversity Variables for Assessing Change in Mountains Globally
This article emphasizes the urgent need for comprehensive data to assess and protect mountain biodiversity, which is vital for ecosystem functioning and services. It proposes using the Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) framework to better monitor and understand changes in mountain ecosystems. The authors identify seven key EBVs that could guide conservation efforts and inform policy aimed at preserving mountain biodiversity.
Dirk S Schmeller, James M Thornton, Davnah Urbach, Jake Alexander, Walter Jetz, Aino Kulonen, Robert T E Mills, Claudia Notornicola, Elisa Palazzi, Harald Pauli, Christophe Randin, Sergey Rosbakh, Roger Sayre, Nasrin Amini Tehrani, William W M Verbiest, Tom W N Walker, Sonja Wipf, Carolina Adler, Toward a set of essential biodiversity variables for assessing change in mountains globally, BioScience, Volume 74, Issue 8, August 2024, Pages 539–551. https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biae052
The Mountains Uncovered Series: Intercomparable Maps and Statistics for 100 Selected Global Mountain Ranges (v1.0)
The Mountains Uncovered series (v1.0) seeks to provide an easily understandable overview of the key characteristics of 100 selected mountain ranges around the world. The series was developed by collating and visualising a variety of current global scale, open data products.
Alberti, K., Thornton, J. M., Turnbach, H. M., & Adler, C. (2023). The Mountains Uncovered Series: Intercomparable Maps and Statistics for 100 Selected Global Mountain Ranges (v1.0) (v1.0). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8010166
Mountain Observations: Monitoring, Data, and Information for Science, Policy, and Society: Policy Brief
Observations play a key role in tracking mountain global change and its impacts, understanding the various processes and feedback mechanisms involved, and delivering more reliable projections of the future to society. This Policy Brief provides an overview of the current state of multi-disciplinary mountain observations. It represents a contribution of the Global Network on Observations and Information in Mountain Environments (GEO Mountains) to the observance of the International Year of Sustainable Mountain Development.
Thornton, J. M., Palazzi, E., & Adler, C. (2022). Mountain Observations: Monitoring, Data, and Information for Science, Policy, and Society. Policy Brief: International Year of Sustainable Mountain Development 2022. https://doi.org/10.48350/175341
A Workshop on Advances in Our Understanding of Elevation Dependent Climate Change
This is an output from the MRI's Elevation Dependent Working Group. Experts from around the world gathered at the University of Innsbruck in Austria for a workshop on how climate change is affecting mountain environments, in particular at different elevations.
Napoli, A., Pepin, N., Palazzi, E., & Zardi, D. (2023). A workshop on advances in our understanding of Elevation Dependent Climate Change. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. doi: https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-23-0043.1
Human Populations in the World’s Mountains: Spatio-Temporal Patterns and Potential Controls
MRI Scientific Project Officer, James Thornton, authored this research article published in the journal PLOS ONE. Thornton and co-authors develop and implement an open workflow to quantify the sensitivity of mountain population estimates over recent decades, both globally and for several sets of relevant reporting regions, to alternative input dataset combinations.
Thornton, J. M., Snethlage, M. A., Sayre, R., Urbach, D. R., Viviroli, D., Ehrlich, D., Muccione, V., Wester, P., Insarov, G., & Adler, C. (2022). Human populations in the world’s mountains: Spatio-temporal patterns and potential controls. PLoS ONE, 17(7 July), 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0271466
Mountain Research Initiative: 20 Years of Making Connections for Our Changing Mountains
In 2021, the Mountain Research Initiative (MRI) Coordination Office celebrated its 20th anniversary. The milestone is testament to the efforts of a dynamic global community of researchers. This publication showcases just a few of the many key contributions made by the MRI community, and invites those who have been part of its 20-year history to share their reflections on the past, present, and future of the network.
Mountain Research Initiative (2022). 20 Years of Making Connections for Our Changing Mountains. Bern, Mountain Research Initiative. https://www.doi.org/10.48350/171161
Coverage of in Situ Climatological Observations in the World’s Mountains
In this GEO Mountains research article, published in the journal Frontiers, Thornton et al. analyse the coverage of in situ climatological observations across the world's mountains. Spatial mountain data coverage is found to be highly uneven, with station densities in several “Water Tower Units” that were previously identified as having great hydrological importance to society being especially low.
Thornton, J. M., Pepin, N., Shahgedanova, M., & Adler, C. (2022). Coverage of In Situ Climatological Observations in the World’s Mountains. Frontiers in Climate, 0, 41. https://doi.org/10.3389/FCLIM.2022.814181
Climate Changes and Their Elevational Patterns in the Mountains of the World
This article is authored by Nick Pepin, the lead of the MRI Working Group on Elevation-Dependent Climate Change. Co-authors include MRI Executive director Carolina Adler and MRI Scientific Project Officer James Thornton. Using gridded data sets the article examines elevation-dependent changes in warming and precipitation on a global scale.
Pepin, N. C., Arnone, E., Gobiet, A., Haslinger, K., Kotlarski, S., Notarnicola, C., Palazzi, E., Seibert, P., Serafin, S., Schöner, W., Terzago, S., Thornton, J. M., Vuille, M., & Adler, C (2022). Climate changes and their elevational patterns in the mountains of the world. Reviews of Geophysics. https://doi.org/10.1029/2020RG000730
Toward a Definition of Essential Mountain Climate Variables
In this article in the journal One Earth, MRI Scientific Project Officer James Thornton and co-authors propose a set of potential Essential Mountain Climate Variables to support the monitoring and understanding of key climate change-related mountain processes. The article builds upon a workshop organized by GEO Mountains and hosted by the MRI.
Thornton, J.M., Palazzi, E., Pepin, N.C., Cristofanelli, P., Essery, R., Kotlarski, S., Giuliani, G., Guigoz, Y., Kulonen, A., Pritchard, D., Li, X., Fowler, H.J., Randin, C.F., Shahgedanova, M., Steinbacher, M., Zebisch, M., and Adler, C. (2021). Toward a definition of Essential Mountain Climate Variables. One Earth, 4(6). doi: 10.1016/j.oneear.2021.05.005
Mountain Observatories: Status and Prospects for Enhancing and Connecting a Global Community
MRI SLC member and Mountain Observatories Working Group Lead Maria Shahgedanova is the lead author of this article in the journal Mountain Research and Development (MRD). Co-authors include MRI Executive Director Carolina Adler; MRI Co-PI Christian Huggel; MRI Elevation-Dependent Climate Change Working Group Lead Nick Pepin; and MRI SLC members Aster Gebrekirstos, Ricardo Grau, and Rob Marchant, among others. They identify geographical and thematic gaps as well as recent advances in monitoring of biophysical and socioeconomic variables in mountains, and propose ways to connect existing initiatives, support emerging areas, and develop new mountain observatory networks regionally and globally.
Shahgedanova, M., Adler, C., Gebrekirstos, A., Grau, H. R., Huggel, C., Marchant, R., Pepin, N., Vanacker, V., Viviroli, D., & Vuille, M. (2021). Mountain Observatories: Status and Prospects for Enhancing and Connecting a Global Community. Mountain Research and Development, 41(2). https://doi.org/10.1659/MRD-JOURNAL-D-20-00054.1
GEO-GNOME Workshop “Identifying Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVS) and Essential Societal Variables (ESVS) in Mountain Environments”
The Global Network on Observations and Information in Mountain Environments (GEO Mountains, formerly GEO-GNOME) convened this workshop in February 2020 in Zürich, Switzerland. The workshop was led by the GEO-GNOME co-leads Mountain Research Initiative (MRI) and the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, National Research Council (ISAC-CNR), with support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), the Global Mountain Biodiversity Assessment (GMBA), and the US Geological Survey (USGS).
This report summarizes the objectives and outcomes of the workshop, which include the selection of EBVs and ESVs required to observe, monitor and inform on changes in mountain biodiversity and mountain social-ecological systems.
Kulonen, A., Adler, C., & Palazzi, E. (2020). GEO-GNOME Workshop "Identifying Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) and Essential Societal Variables (ESVs) in Mountain Environments." Global Network for Observations and Information in Mountain Environments. Bern: Mountain Research Initiative (MRI). https://boris.unibe.ch/144872/
Monitoring Mountains in a Changing World: New Horizons for the Global Network for Observations and Information in Mountain Environments (GEO GNOME)
A proposed roadmap for monitoring global change in mountains at various levels and in various contexts, with a view to responding to the integrated knowledge needs of policy, research, and management.
Carolina Adler, Elisa Palazzi, Aino Kulonen, Jörg Balsiger, Guido Colangeli, Douglas Cripe, Nathan Forsythe, Grace Goss-Durant, Yaniss Guigoz, Jürg Krauer, Davnah Payne, Nicholas Pepin, Manuel Peralvo, José Romero, Roger Sayre, Maria Shahgedanova, Rolf Weingartner, Marc Zebisch. 2018. 'Monitoring Mountains in a Changing World: New Horizons for the Global Network for Observations and Information in Mountain Environments (GEO GNOME).' Mountain Research and Development, 38(3):265-269. https://doi.org/10.1659/MRD-JOURNAL-D-8-00065.1
A New High-Resolution Map of World Mountains and an Online Tool for Visualizing and Comparing Characterizations of Global Mountain Distributions
This article introduces the Global Mountain Explorer, a new web-based application specifically developed for exploration, visualization, and comparison of maps of the world's mountains. This new open-access tool is an intuitive and versatile resource suitable for a broad range of users and applications.
Roger Sayre, Charlie Frye, Deniz Karagulle, Jürg Krauer, Sean Breyer, Peter Aniello, Dawn J. Wright, Davnah Payne, Carolina Adler, Harumi Warner, D. Paco VanSistine, and Jill Cress "A New High-Resolution Map of World Mountains and an Online Tool for Visualizing and Comparing Characterizations of Global Mountain Distributions," Mountain Research and Development 38(3), 240-249, (1 August 2018). https://doi.org/10.1659/MRD-JOURNAL-D-17-00107.1