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Satellite images could offer a new way to monitor for avalanche threats to remote mountain communities, according to University of Aberdeen scientists studying deadly Himalayan avalanche.

The team from the University of Aberdeen’s School of Geosciences used satellite imaging to study the movements of two avalanche events, in 2016 and 2021, that happened in the same Himalayan valley. The most severe of these, which struck a high-mountain township in India’s Chamoli district on February 7 last year, caused a flash flood that killed more than 200 people and destroyed key infrastructure.

Melting and sublimation on Mount Everest's highest glacier due to human-induced climate change have reached the point that several decades of accumulation are being lost annually now that ice has been exposed, according to a University of Maine-led international research team that analyzed data from the world's highest ice core and highest automatic weather stations.

The extreme sensitivity of the high-altitude Himalayan ice masses in rapid retreat forewarns of quickly emerging impacts that could range from increased incidence of avalanches and decreased capacity of the glacier stored water on which more than 1 billion people depend to provide melt for drinking water and irrigation.

The UN General Assembly has designated 2022 the International Year of Sustainable Mountain Development. All governments, international organizations, and stakeholders are invited to observe the International Year to increase awareness of the importance of sustainable mountain development and the conservation and sustainable use of mountain ecosystems.

Through this resolution, UN Member States acknowledge that mountain regions, especially in developing countries, are experiencing increasing poverty, food insecurity, social exclusion, environmental degradation and exposure to the risk of disasters, and access to basic services is limited. These include safe and affordable drinking water, basic sanitation, and sustainable modern energy services.

The Solution-Oriented Research for Development programme supports transdisciplinary research in collaboration with developing countries. It will run from 2022 to 2026.

Achieving the sustainable development goals set out in the 2030 Agenda requires new ways of thinking, innovative social practices, and adapted technologies. As part of the UN's Decade of Action, the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) renewed their partnership for a further ten years in 2021. Central to this alliance is the launch of the new research programme Solution-Oriented Research for Development (SOR4D). Focusing on transdisciplinary research and the needs of development actors, it will aim to generate solutions, innovations, and improved knowledge to foster sustainable development and reduce poverty in the least developed and low- and middle-income countries.

The accelerating melting of the Himalayan glaciers threatens the water supply of millions of people in Asia, new research warns.

The study, led by the University of Leeds, concludes that over recent decades the Himalayan glaciers have lost ice ten times more quickly over the last few decades than on average since the last major glacier expansion 400-700 years ago, a period known as the Little Ice Age.

An unprecedented abundance of oceanic life played a crucial role in the creation of Earth's mountains, a landmark study led by scientists at the University of Aberdeen has revealed.

While the formation of mountains is usually associated with the collision of tectonic plates causing huge slabs of rock to be thrust skywards, the study has shown that this was triggered by an abundance of nutrients in the oceans 2 billion years ago which caused an explosion in planktonic life.

Retreating glaciers in the Pacific mountains of western North America could produce around 6,150 kilometers of new Pacific salmon habitat by the year 2100, according to a new study.

Scientists have ‘peeled back the ice’ from 46,000 glaciers between southern British Columbia and south-central Alaska to look at how much potential salmon habitat would be created when underlying bedrock is exposed and new streams flow over the landscape.

Mountain areas are particularly affected by global warming, but how it impacts snow avalanches remains poorly known. Researchers from INRAE, Météo France, the CNRS* and the Universities of Grenoble Alpes, Genève and Haute-Alsace have together evaluated changes in avalanche activity over nearly two-and-a-half centuries in the Vosges Mountains, combining historical analysis with statistical modelling and climate research.

Their results, published on 25 October in PNAS, show that avalanches now occur at higher altitudes than previously, with avalanche prone areas now restricted to the range’s highest elevations. This upslope migration has resulted in a sevenfold reduction of the number of avalanches, a shortening of the avalanche season, and a shrinkage in their size by comparison with the last phase of the Little Ice Age. The results also show that low to medium elevation mountain ranges such as the Vosges Mountains may serve as sentinels for the impacts of climate warming.

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