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CIRMOUNT grew from a grass-roots initiative in the
early 2000s, fueled by the concerns and interests of a cross-section
of physical and ecological scientists working in western North American
mountain climate sciences. While coming from diverse disciplines,
these scientists and those who align with CIRMOUNT share a common
passion to improve and integrate understanding and applications
about climate in western mountains and effects on ecosystems. An
ad hoc committee formed to promote greater understanding of the
physical processes affecting western mountains and their ecosystems,
and to improve communication of scientific findings to policy- and
decision-makers. Several symposia and special sessions were hosted
in 2002-2003, and in May, 2004, the nascent CIRMOUNT sponsored the
Mountain Climate Sciences Symposium at
Lake Tahoe to identify the range of topics that CIRMOUNT should
address and to envision projects that the consortium could undertake.
Participants at the Tahoe Symposium proposed a research initiative
aimed at improving our understanding and ability to predict future
climate and ecosystem changes in the West. In particular, they agreed
that strategies were needed to encourage close collaboration among
researchers from many scientific disciplines regarding the likely
impacts that temperature and precipitation changes arising from
both natural variability and greenhouse warming would have on western
North American mountain ecosystems. Answering these questions will
be critical in assessing their impacts on the hydrology of the West,
and how those changes may be linked to ecosystem goods and services.
From the groundswell of interest at this symposium, CIRMOUNT was
initiated, and the first conference of a regular series, MTNCLIM,
was held at Chico, Montana as MTNCLIM
2005.
CIRMOUNT addresses four urgent challenges facing western North
America climate science and policy communities:
- Mountain regions are vastly under-instrumented to measure climate
and longterm changes - we do not even know how mountain climates
are related to lowland conditions;
- Research on western North American mountain climates & ecosystems
is intensive, but scattered and poorly integrated;
- Societal demands on western mountain ecosystems are exponentially
escalating, imposing new and cumulative stresses on natural resources
and rural community capacities;
- Climate change is widely ignored in mountain land-use planning
and natural-resource policy to the detriment of ecosystems conservation
and natural resource management.
In confronting these challenges, CIRMOUNT provides a forum that
is responsive to the needs and challenges of western society imposed
by climate changes on mountain ecosystems.
CIRMOUNT GOALS for the mountains of Western North America:
- Promote installation and analysis of coordinated high-elevation
climate, hydrologic, and ecosystem monitoring (observation)
- Catalyze integrated research on mountain climates and their
effects on ecosystems (research)
- Communicate science among diverse disciplines and provide sound
science for effective land-use planning and management (communication
and decision-support)
- Promote development of longterm, policy-relevant mountain climate
and ecosystem databases (research, observation, communication,
and decision- support)
- Develop CIRMOUNT as a pilot regional model for integrating
climate-related sciences at the international scale; encourage
participation of the CIRMOUNT community in global mountain-climate
programs and assessments (international collaboration)
CIRMOUNT aligns with the goals of the U.S. federal Climate
Change Science Program, coordinates with the USGS Western
Mountain Initiative, and is endorsed as a pilot regional project
of the international Mountain
Research Initiative.
CIRMOUNT Strategic Plan April 2007, outlines goals
for the future.
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