GEO-GNOME Workshop 2019

Participants at the GEO-GNOME workshop (Photo: MRI)

In a blog post originally written for the P3 project, Marilen Haver – a PhD Student and early career scientist at P³ – describes her experience of attending the recent MRI-hosted GEO-GNOME workshop on 'Essential Climate Variables for Observations in Mountains'.

I attended the GEO-GNOME workshop on 'Essential Climate Variables for Observations in Mountains' which was held in Bern, Switzerland, 24-26 June 2019. The late June heatwave that just started to hit made it seem even more urgent to talk about climate change among sweating mountain scientists. 

The event was organized by the GEO-GNOME co-leads, the Mountain Research Initiative and the National Research Council of Italy. Attendees were experts from different scientific backgrounds, but all with mountains at the heart of their research. We gathered with the aim of discussing and selecting the most relevant indicator variables for climate change observation in mountains. The previously defined 54 Essential Climate Variables by GCOS (Global Climate Observing System) served as a starting point, but those had to be condensed and screened for relevance in a mountain context.

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Pictured: Workshop participants identifying ECVs for the hydrosphere (above left), and workshop participants on a tour of the Jungfraujoch research station (above right). Photos: MRI.

To feed the following discussions, parts of the workshop days were dedicated to short presentations by participants working either on the mountain cryosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, or biosphere. In the remaining time, group work helped to define key climate change processes and their connected most relevant indicator variables. For the final variables selected, we additionally listed in-situ and remote-sensing monitoring methods which are feasible to apply in current mountain research efforts.

For us as it was important to take part in this discussion in order to contribute our knowledge on the aquatic biosphere, as well as to benefit from fruitful interdisciplinary discussions around indicators of climate change in mountains.

Thanks MRI / GEO-GNOME for organizing this workshop!


The P3 project conducts ecological research and policy-relevant action on pollution, pathogens, and anthropological impacts in mountain ecosystems, especially at the interface of aquatic and terrestrial habitats and in the socio-ecological system.

Marilen Haver's original blog post can be viewed on the P3 website.


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