Mountain environments are rich in plant and animal species, but the dual threat of human habitation and climate change means urgent action is needed to protect them.
Following historic drought in 2021, reservoir levels dropped down in the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River, which gets its waters from the melting snowpack from the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and Wyoming.
(pxhere.com)
Mountain systems are sensitive to climate change. Loss of snow and ice sets off effects which have wide ranging consequences.
Rocca Calascio is a mountaintop fortress in the province of L'Aquila in Italy. It bears witness to the long relationship between humanity and mountains, and how natural landscapes are also culture ones.
UNESCO
Often thought of as eternal, mountains are vulnerable to climate change and tourism. To protect them, they should be recognised for their cultural values, not just their natural characteristics.
Mountains can’t be created without lubricant, and 2 billion years ago that lubricant was graphite produced by the carbon broken down from layers of dead plankton on the ocean floor.
Dams built in an earlier age are suddenly vulnerable as the climate shifts.
Snow melts near the Continental Divide in the Bridger Wilderness Area in Wyoming, part of the Greater Yellowstone Area.
Bryan Shuman/University of Wyoming
The area’s iconic national parks are home to grizzlies, elk and mountain snowfall that feeds some of the country’s most important rivers. A new report show the changes underway as temperatures rise.
Professor for Conservation Biology, Axa Chair for Functional Mountain Ecology at the École Nationale Supérieure Agronomique de Toulouse, Université de Toulouse III – Paul Sabatier