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

该奖项为美国参与者提供旅行支持，以参加将于2017年8月/9月在中国青海湖附近举行的中美研讨会“变化的冰冻圈对高海拔气候，天气和水生生态系统的影响”。气候、天气和河流、湖泊等水生生态系统彼此密切相关。 在山区尤其如此，冰川以及永久性和季节性积雪对河流和湖泊的物理（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。由于山区就像人类的“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。 为了最好地推进这一理解，不同地区的科学家需要比较他们的研究结果，并分享他们分析和发现的最佳做法。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会上分享数据，发展合作，并制定进一步工作的计划，以促进我们对变化的高山环境如何影响湖泊和溪流以及我们的水资源的理解。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尤其受到影响，这是因为在高海拔地区观测到的温度上升幅度加大，而且主要的冰冻圈组成部分（冰川、积雪）对温度和降水的变化十分敏感。冰冻圈正在发生的变化是广泛的，复杂的，并影响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。自然变率与外部强迫在驱动观测到的雪和冰川分布变化，以及高海拔的能量，水，天气和地球化学循环的作用，需要进行调查。记录、理解和预测这些影响具有挑战性，需要广泛的跨学科合作。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沼学、气象学、大气科学和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，确定主要未回答的问题，并建立未来合作网络。该奖项由国际科学与工程办公室、地球科学理事会地球科学和大气与地球空间科学司以及BIO理事会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.