Disastrous Effects of Climate Change on High Mountain Asia

Introduction:

Climate change has significant impacts on geophysical and biological processes. Moreover, it interacts strongly with many human systems. In High Mountain Asia (HMA), climate warming has resulted in the rapid melting and thawing of the cryosphere, accelerating ice-mass losses and the frequency of related surficial hazards such as glacier detachments, rock-ice avalanches, rockfall, landslides, debris flow and glacier lake outburst floods (GLOFs). As these natural disasters become more frequent and intense, the effectiveness of human responses in mitigating such risks in diminishing. Hence, there is a need to better understand the risks induced by climate change in HMA and beyond by exploring the characteristics, variations, evolution mechanisms and future trends of climate change.

This special issue will highlight the emerging trends and recent discoveries in the field of climate change and related natural disasters, with a focus on the HMA region.

Topics include, but not be limited to:

• New datasets related to the atmosphere, land surface and nature hazards, using in situ observations, remote sensing skills and numerical simulation
• Natural hazard (for example, floods and droughts, landslides, debris flow, snow avalanches, GLOFs, etc.) evolution mechanisms of the regional climate in HMA
• Natural hazards induced by extreme weather and climate events, and the disaster chain processes
• Interaction between climate-related disaster risks and human and ecological systems

Important deadlines

• Submission deadline: 31 July 2023
• Publication date: 31 December 2023

Submission instructions:

Articles should be 5,000‒6,000 words excluding references. Abstract should be between 300‒500 words. Authors are welcome to submit up to six figures with each article.

Please read the Guide for Authors before submitting. All articles should be submitted online; please select DisasterEffectsofCCinHMA.

Guest Editors:

• Prof. Peng Cui, Chengdu Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Email: pengcui@imde.ac.cn
• Prof. Yaoming Ma, Institute of Tibetan Plateau, Chinese Academy of Sciences, ymma@itpcas.ac.cn