News
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- Category: GEO Mountains
The Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) recently invited all interested participants to review the draft of its 2021 Status Report.
Human populations in both upland and connected downstream regions rely greatly on ecosystem goods and services provided by mountainous environments. Yet being often extremely steep, remote, and/or inhospitable, mountains represent rather unique contexts, with obstacles to making representative and informative environmental observations being numerous.
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- Category: MRI News
The MRI Expert Database has served as a useful tool for connection and collaboration for the mountain research community for many years. It comprises thousands of profiles of people involved in mountain research, management, governmental and non-governmental institutions, and the private sector.
The new MRI Expert Database builds on the strong foundations that were already in place, while offering updated features such as improved search functionality and data privacy.
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- Category: Global News
The Mountain Research Initiative Coordination Office was extremely saddened to hear news of the flood/debris flow disaster that occurred in the mountainous Chamoli district of Uttarakhand State, India, on the morning of 7 February 20211.
At the time of writing (11 February), 34 people are known to have lost their lives, and at least 174 people remain missing2. Two hydropower stations and other infrastructure, including roads and bridges, were destroyed. We hope that the remainder of the rescue and recovery operation will proceed as efficiently as the challenging circumstances in this fragile social-ecological system allow. Several members of the MRI network, in conjunction with Indian scientists, are contributing to develop an understanding of the event and its impacts.
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- Category: MRI News
As part of our commitment to support our research community to advance key research questions relevant for knowledge on social-ecological systems in mountains, the MRI funds MRI Synthesis Workshops.
These workshops bring together global change researchers to address specific topics of interest to the mountain research community, with the objective of producing synthesis products such as articles for publication in peer-reviewed scientific journals or the compilation of relevant data into publishable datasets or databases. For the 2020 call, the MRI Coordination Office received 13 proposals that met the conditions for funding support, from which two were selected. Due to the complex situation around the COVID-19 pandemic for much of 2020, the first of these Synthesis Workshops will take place online in 2021.
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- Category: Global News
The Biosphere Futures database, a global collection of social-ecological scenarios "creating a commons to strengthen the practice," is seeking scenario and case study contributions from the mountain research community.
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- Category: MRI News
The Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS), Mountain Research Initiative (MRI), PAst Global ChangES Early-Career Network (PAGES-ECN), Permafrost Young Research Network (PYRN), and Young Earth System Scientists (YESS) community successfully organized the group review of the Second Order Draft (SOD) of Working Group II (WGII) contribution to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 6th Assessment Report (AR6) by early career scientists.
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- Category: Education & Training
The One Planet Fellowship is a career-accelerator designed to enhance the capacity of high potential African agricultural researchers focused on climate change adaptation, by building their leadership, scientific research, networking, and mentoring skills.
Application deadline 15 February 2021.
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- Category: Global News
Nearly a quarter of Italian alpine plant species are threatened by glacier retreat, according to a new study from Stanford University. Glaciers around the world are predicted to disappear within the next decade and the consequences for the plants, animals, and societies surrounding them are still uncertain. By combining historical records, current surveys, and computational models, the researchers’ findings may help guide conservation efforts.
Beyond the ski slopes, one of the most iconic symbols of the Alps are the alpine flowers. These plants are not only beautiful–they are also used in liqueurs and medicines, and they form the foundation of the local food chains. But a recent study in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution shows that, although plant diversity may initially increase with glacier retreat, many of these species may soon become endangered.
