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- Category: Global News
ESA is pleased to announce the upcoming ESA–EGU Earth Observation Excellence Award.
Deadline to submit nominations is 2 November 2020.
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Dust blowing onto high mountains in the western Himalayas is a bigger factor than previously thought in hastening the melting of snow there, researchers show in a study published Oct. 5 in Nature Climate Change.
That’s because dust— lots of it in the Himalayas— absorbs sunlight, heating the snow that surrounds it.
“It turns out that dust blowing hundreds of miles from parts of Africa and Asia and landing at very high elevations has a broad impact on the snow cycle in a region that is home to one of the largest masses of snow and ice on Earth,” said Yun Qian, atmospheric scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
Conservationists May Be Forced to Relocate Cold-Loving Butterflies Over Next 50 Years, Study Reveals
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Some of Europe’s native butterflies may have to be moved to colder climes if they are to survive global warming, a new study suggests.
The University of York study tracked the impact of changes in climate on the genetic diversity of the mountain ringlet butterfly over the 21,000 years since the last ice age. The study suggests that future conservationists may have to evacuate some populations of butterflies to cooler habitats, higher up in mountains or further north in places including Scotland, Scandinavia, and the Alps.
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Welcome to our October 2020 round-up of new publications! This list, updated each week, contains articles relevant to mountain research that you won't want to miss this month.
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Future Earth is an international platform for research, innovation, and collaboration, working to accelerate transformations to a sustainable world. Among its many functions and activities, it also fosters strategic partnerships with international organizations that support this mission, such as the Mountain Research Initiative, with whom a Memorandum of Understanding was signed in 2016.
In the below article – originally published on the Future Earth website – the Interim Executive Director of Future Earth, Josh Tewksbury, reflects on Future Earth’s activities in response to global grand challenges, and offers an outlook on what can be expected from the organisation in view of its current leadership and institutional transition. This follows from the recent Future Earth Summit, which took place virtually between 15-17 June 2020, to review the relationship between the Future Earth Secretariat, advisory, and governing structures and the Future Earth community, which includes the MRI. Future Earth has a microsite available, in which regular updates regarding this transition process are published. Take a look here.
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The International Science Council (ISC) is seeking nominations for the first edition of the ISC Awards Programme.
The deadline for nominations is 1 February 2021.
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From 17 to 28 August, over 250 experts from 50 countries joined 20 virtual meetings to continue preparations for the IPCC Working Group (WG) II contribution to the sixth assessment report (AR6), which includes a Cross-Chapter Paper on Mountains. The virtual meetings were convened as a means to continue the report writing momentum despite COVID-19 restrictions, and bring the lead author team together to discuss and coordinate their contributions in the lead-up to the submission of the Second Order Draft (SOD) of the report, due 6 November 2020.
Over 250 scientists and experts in the fields of climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability met virtually from 17 to 28 August 2020 to advance work on the contribution of Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). The aim of the virtual meetings was to ensure coherence across the entire report and to facilitate such coordination across chapters so that all report objectives are met, despite the enormous challenges authors and scientists are facing in the current COVID-19 crisis, according to a press release issued by the IPCC in the lead up to these virtual meetings.
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At the 2020 Albert Mountain Awards ceremony in Bern, the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF was recognized for its outstanding contribution to avalanche prevention. Other recipients of the 2020 awards were the magazine L'Alpe and the Swiss musician Christian Zehnder.
The King Albert I Memorial Foundation Albert Mountain Awards take place every two years, and are granted to people and institutions that have made exceptional and lasting contributions to the preservation of the mountains of the world – whether through research, conservation, development, arts and culture, or mountaineering.
