High Mountain Areas

Hock, Regine, Rasul, Golam, Adler, Carolina, Cáceres, Bolívar, Gruber, Stephan, Hirabayashi, Yukiko, Jackson, Miriam, Kääb, Andreas, Kang, Shichang, Kutuzov, Stanislav, Milner, Alexander, Molau, Ulf, Morin, Samuel, Orlove, Ben, Steltzer, Heidi, Allen, Simon, Arenson, Lukas, Baneerjee, Soumyadeep, Barr, Iestyn ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9066-8738, Bórquez, Roxana, Brown, Lee, Cao, Bin, Carey, Mark, Cogley, Graham, Fischlin, Andreas, de Sherbinin, Alex, Eckert, Nicolas, Geertsema, Marten, Hagenstad, Marca, Honsberg, Martin, Hood, Eran, Huss, Matthias, Jimenez Zamora, Elizabeth, Kotlarski, Sven, Lefeuvre, Pierre-Marie, Ignacio López Moreno, Juan, Lundquist, Jessica, McDowell, Graham, Mills, Scott, Mou, Cuicui, Nepal, Santosh, Noetzli, Jeannette, Palazzi, Elisa, Pepin, Nick, Rixen, Christian, Shahgedanova, Maria, McKenzie Skiles, S, Vincent, Christian, Viviroli, Daniel, Weyhenmeyer, Gesa, Yangjee Sherpa, Pasang, Weyer, Nora, Wouters, Bert, Yasunari, Teppei, You, Qinglong and Zhang, Yangjiang (2019) High Mountain Areas. In: IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

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Abstract

The cryosphere (including, snow, glaciers, permafrost, lake and river ice) is an integral element of high-mountain regions, which are home to roughly 10% of the global population. Widespread cryosphere changes affect physical, biological and human systems in the mountains and surrounding lowlands, with impacts evident even in the ocean. Building on the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), this chapter assesses new evidence on observed recent and projected changes in the mountain cryosphere as well as associated impacts, risks and adaptation measures related to natural and human systems. Impacts in response to climate changes independently of changes in the cryosphere are not assessed in this chapter. Polar mountains are included in Chapter 3, except those in Alaska and adjacent Yukon, Iceland, and Scandinavia, which are included in this chapter.