US-China Workshop on Impacts of a Changing Cryosphere on High Elevation Climate, Weather, and Aquatic Ecosystems

该奖项为美国-中国研讨会的美国与会者提供差旅支持，该研讨会将于2017年8月/9月在中国青海湖附近举行，主题为“冰冻圈变化对高海拔气候、天气和水生态系统的影响”。气候、天气和河流、湖泊等水生生态系统密切相关。尤其是在山区，冰川以及永久性和季节性积雪对溪流和湖泊的物理(温度)、化学(氮和磷等营养物质)和生物(微生物、藻类、鱼类)特征有重大影响。然而，山区环境正在经历非常迅速的气候变化，甚至比全球平均水平更明显。山区就像人类的水塔，我们需要更好地了解这些不断变化的环境条件对我们供水的数量和质量意味着什么。为了更好地促进这一理解，不同地区的科学家需要比较他们的发现，并分享他们分析和发现的最佳实践。该项目将支持一个密集的跨学科研讨会，来自美国和中国的科学家、数学家和工程师将在研讨会上分享数据，开展合作，并制定进一步工作计划，以增进我们对高山环境变化可能如何影响湖泊和溪流，从而影响我们水资源的理解。持续的气候变化正在对全球生态系统产生重大的物理、化学和生物影响。山区的水生生态系统受到的影响尤其大，因为在高海拔地区观察到的温度上升放大，而且主要的冰冻圈成分(冰川、积雪)对温度和降水的变化很敏感。冰冻圈中正在进行的变化是广泛而复杂的，并影响到高山湖泊和溪流的各种关键参数，如温度、透明度、流量和营养供应。需要研究自然变异性和外部强迫在推动观测到的雪和冰川分布变化以及高海拔能量、水、天气和生物地球化学循环方面的作用。记录、理解和预测这些影响具有挑战性，需要广泛的跨学科协作。为了应对这些全球性挑战，本次研讨会将汇集来自美国和中国的湖泊学、气象学、大气科学、水文学以及数据科学和数学建模方面的专家，以协调研究，分享关键发现，确定重大悬而未决的问题，并为未来的合作建立网络。该奖项由国际科学和工程办公室、地球科学局的地球科学司、地球科学局的大气和地球空间科学司以及生物局的生物基础设施和环境生物学司共同资助。

This award provides travel support for US-based participants to the US-China workshop on "Impacts of a changing cryosphere on high elevation climate,weather, and aquatic ecosystems", to be held near Qinghai Lake, China in August/September 2017. Climate, weather, and aquatic ecosystems such as streams and lakes are intimately connected to each other. This is especially true in mountain regions where glaciers as well as permanent and seasonal snowpack have major effects on physical (temperature), chemical (nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus), and biological (microbes, algae, fish) features of streams and lakes. However, mountain environments are experiencing very rapid changes in climate, even more pronounced than global averages. Since mountain regions are like humanity's "water towers", we need a better understanding of what these changing environmental conditions mean for the quantity and quality of our water supply. To best advance this understanding, scientists in different regions need to compare their findings and share their best practices of analysis and discovery. This project will support an intensive interdisciplinary workshop in which scientists, mathematicians, and engineers from the USA and China will meet to share data, develop collaborations, and make plans for further work to advance our understanding of how a changing alpine environment might affect lakes and streams and thus our water resources.Ongoing climate variation is having major physical, chemical, and biological impacts on global ecosystems. Aquatic ecosystems in mountain regions are especially impacted due to amplified temperature increases observed at high elevation and due to the sensitivity of key cryospheric components (glaciers, snowpack) to changes in temperature and precipitation. The ongoing changes in the cryosphere are widespread, complex, and affect a variety of key parameters for alpine lakes and streams such as temperature, transparency, discharge, and nutrient supply. The roles of natural variability versus external forcing in driving observed changes in snow and glacier distributions, as well as high elevation energy, water, weather, and biogeochemical cycles, need to be investigated. Documenting, understanding, and forecasting these impacts is challenging and requires broad interdisciplinary collaborations. To address these global challenges, this workshop will bring together experts in limnology, meteorology, atmospheric science, and hydrology as well as data science and mathematical modeling from both the USA and China to coordinate research, share key findings, identify major unanswered questions, and establish a network for future collaboration. This award is co-funded by the Office of International Science and Engineering, the Divisions of Earth Sciences and Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences of the GeoScience Directorate, and the Divisions of Biological Infrastructure and Environmental Biology of the BIO Directorate.