Topics: - Physical Processes in the Alpine Cryosphere - Interactions between the alpine cryosphere and the alpine climate - Sensitivity of alpine glaciers and permafrost to climate change
Climate change poses a major challenge for humanity and the related global implications will influence and threaten future economies and livelihood of coming generations, especially in developing countries. One region, where climate change has major impacts is Central Asia. With the Tien Shan and Pamir, the region contains two of the largest mountain systems of the world, which serve as water towers in arid and continental region. Future water resources in these regions depend strongly on the cryosphere, particularly on snow, glaciers and permafrost. These cryospheric components store enormous amounts of water in its solid form. These resources will play an important role for future water availability under the ongoing climate warming influencing future water resource management. Several recent studies point out clearly that a) in arid regions like Central Asia, water release by glaciers is fundamental to keep runoff sufficient during the dry summer months and b) at the end of this century the water contribution of glaciers will be drastically reduced and certain catchments will completely dry-out. This setting creates a complex set of future challenges in the areas of water management, energy production, irrigation, agriculture, environment, disaster risk reduction, security and public health.
Notably this also poses challenges in the field of climate services, as the lack of reliable data and commitment of the governments to fully integrate their observatory systems inhibits the sustainable development of the region. Exactly at this point, the project CICADA (Cryospheric Climate Services for improved Adaptations) is currently contributing to the improvement of the Cryospheric Climate Services in the Central Asian countries by installing modern monitoring stations, by training local students and researchers and using this information in order to provide climate scenarios and services for water runoff and natural hazards (e.g. GLOFs, debris flows). This is a prerequisite to allow early planning and adaptation measures within the water resource management (WRM) and disaster risk reduction (DRR) sectors. These scenarios and services have to be based on calibrated models linked to high quality baseline data.
The project is organized and partly financed by the University of Fribourg under the auspice of the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) with a large contribution of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).