Abstract ID: 3.11656 | Accepted as Talk | Talk/Oral | TBA | TBA

Climate change is dramatically impacting mountain ecosystems around the world. Perhaps the most visceral of these impacts is the ongoing recession of glaciers and perennial snowfields. However, surface glaciers and snowfields are not the only perennial ice features in mountain landscapes. Many forms of subsurface ice (e.g., rock glaciers) are also present and play an important, albeit understudied, role in water availability and aquatic ecosystem integrity in mountain systems. Theory predicts that surface ice features that are exposed to ambient conditions will recede faster than subsurface ice that is insulated by debris cover. A limited amount of evidence supports this expectation. Since 2015, we have been monitoring high-alpine streams in the Teton Range, USA fed by three different sources—surface glaciers, rock glaciers, and seasonal snowpack—to understand the fate of aquatic ecosystems amidst climate change and how different sources may yield differing rates of change. In 2014 and 2022, LiDAR data was also generated for the Teton Range. By pairing our 10+ years of aquatic monitoring data with physical change inferred from LiDAR, we were able to gain rare insight into the links between physical change to ice sources and downstream ecosystems. Specifically, we found that rock glaciers in the Teton Range have been resistant to climate-induced ice loss while surface ice features have seen dramatic declines. However, these physical changes have not been mirrored in nearby streams. For instance, streams fed by seasonal snowpack and small perennial ice features have warmed rapidly during the summer while streams fed by surface glaciers and rock glaciers have remained largely unchanged.