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As climate change persists, amplified temperature increases in mountains and changes in precipitation will diminish snow and ice.

Observations play a key role in tracking mountain global change and its impacts, understanding the various processes and feedback mechanisms involved, and delivering more reliable projections of the future to society. This Policy Brief provides an overview of the current state of multi-disciplinary mountain observations. It represents a contribution of the Global Network on Observations and Information in Mountain Environments (GEO Mountains) to the observance of the International Year of Sustainable Mountain Development 2022.

TEAMx is an international research programme that aims at improving the understanding of exchange processes in the atmosphere over mountains at multiple scales and at advancing the parameterizations of these processes in numerical models for weather and climate prediction–hence its acronyms stands for Multi-scale transport and exchange processes in the atmosphere over mountains – Programme and experiment. TEAMx is a bottom-up initiative promoted by a number of universities, research institutions and operational centres, internationally integrated through a Memorandum of Understanding between inter- ested parties. It is carried out by means of coordinated national, bi-national and multi-national research projects and supported by a Programme Coordination Office at the Department of Atmospheric and Cryospheric Sciences of the University of Innsbruck, Austria. The present document, compiled by the TEAMx Programme Coordination Office, provides a concise overview of the scientific scope of TEAMx. In the interest of accessibility and readability, the document aims at being self-contained and uses only a minimum of references to scientific literature. Greyboxes at the beginning of chapters list the literature sources that provide the scientific basis of the document. This largely builds on review articles published by the journal Atmosphere between 2018 and 2019, in a special issue on Atmospheric Processes over Complex Terrain. A few other important literature pieces have been referenced where appropriate. Interested readers are encouraged to examine the large body of literature summarized and referenced in these articles. Blue boxes have been added to most sub-chapters. Their purpose is to highlight key ideas and proposals for future collaborative research.

The Global Network on Observations and Information in Mountain Environments (GEO-GNOME) convened the GEO-GNOME Workshop “Identifying Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) and Essential Societal Variables (ESVs) in Mountain Environments”, on 20-21 February 2020, in Zürich, Switzerland. The workshop was a key activity identified and prioritized at the GEO-GNOME Status and Scoping Workshop held in Bern in May 2018), and listed as part of GEO-GNOME’s Implementation Plan under the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Work Programme for 2020-2022. The workshop was led and coordinated by the GEO-GNOME co-leads Mountain Research Initiative (MRI) and the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, National Research Council (ISAC-CNR) with support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the MRI. GEO-GNOME contributing organizations, including the Global Mountain Biodiversity Assessment (GMBA) and the US Geological Survey (USGS), contributed to the design and preparation of this workshop. The GEO-GNOME workshop aimed to identify and select processes that account for and improve understanding of key ecological and social-ecological changes in mountain systems and to identify EBVs and ESVs needed to monitor and report on these changes in biodiversity and society in mountains. The workshop was structured around invited inputs from experts, followed by a series of activities in which participants had the opportunity to discuss, elaborate and provide additional feedback and share their expertise and perspectives in the identification of key processes of change and relevant EVs for selection. The key outcome of the workshop is a preliminary selection of EBVs and ESVs required to observe, monitor and inform on changes in mountain biodiversity and mountain social-ecological systems. The final results will be presented in a peer-reviewed publication. Based on the outcomes of the discussions at this workshop, GEO-GNOME will start a process towards building an integrative framework around mountain specific Essential Variables addressing Mountain Social-Ecological Systems.

At the GEO-GNOME Status and Scoping Workshop held in Bern in May 20181 , key objectives and tasks listed on its work plan 2017-2019 were revised (see also Adler et al, 2018). The importance of climate as one key driver of environmental change in mountains, with relevant consequences for social-ecological systems, was reiterated. Given already existing initiatives on essential climate variables from observations and modelling, an opportunity was identified to focus attention on mountain-specific needs of key variables allowing from understanding and tracking changes in mountains and their consequences. A transect network of in-situ climate data over elevation gradients (Unified High Elevation Observing Platform, UHOP3 ), together with consistent time series of EO (satellite) data, was suggested as a means to address key observational data gaps and to improve our understanding of processes of elevation-dependent warming (EDW) and elevation-dependent climate change (EDCC) in mountains, and support a systematic strategy for identifying and collecting new observation data. Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) relevant for mountains were identified as a first starting point. They include “pure climate” variables like temperature, precipitation, snow, radiation, wind, etc., as well as other important variables/drivers such as land-cover. With the support from the European Space Agency (ESA), Future Earth (FE), and the Mountain Research Initiative (MRI), the 2019 GEO-GNOME workshop aimed at identifying and selecting ECVs required in high elevation contexts for the monitoring and better understanding of ‘mountain climate change’, including considerations for integration between in-situ measurements, EO satellite data and modelling. The WMO/GCOS existing catalogue of ECVs was used as initial basis for compiling our list of essential mountain variables. The possibility to use ESA’s existing datasets on ECVs within its Climate Change Initiative (CCI) program was also considered. The key output and outcome of this workshop is a list of ECVs required to observe the processes of elevation-dependent climate change in mountains. In addition, a data collection protocol with identified existing data-sources and criteria for required data quality (particularly the spatial and temporal resolution required) for selected key processes was produced. There are huge observational and information gaps in mountain environments and agreeing on joint protocols and data resolution needed for each relevant process would allow filling these gaps. Collecting data on other environmental processes in addition and in relation to strictly climate-related processes will strengthen GEO-GNOME’s ability to identify relevant data and information that meet the needs of management, policy and scientific research. Making this data discoverable and accessible via suitable data portals, such as the GEO-GNOME Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEO-GNOME GEOSS, under development), will further facilitate data use and research collaborations.