High mountain hydrology and cryosphere: observations, modelling, prospects

High mountain headwaters (snowy forest or tundra, or glaciated basins) are the sources of rivers that supply freshwater for much of humanity. There is a global need to better understand high mountain atmospheric, hydrological and cryospheric processes, improve their prediction as coupled systems, and diagnose their sensitivities to global change to promote water sustainability. Critical research questions such as are there consistent measurement strategies that can be implemented in high mountains, does the predictability of water and energy cycling vary across the high mountain ranges, what improvements are possible in predictions by resorting to high resolution coupled models, to what degree do existing model routines have global validity and can high mountain headwaters be managed to achieve sustainability under global change are important to the World Climate Research Programme’s International Network for Alpine Research Catchment Hydrology (INARCH), a cross-cut project of the GEWEX Hydroclimatology Panel. INARCH has recently conducted a Common Observing Period Experiment (COPE) in 38 mountain research basins to collect high-quality observations from field and remote sensing campaigns. This session welcomes contributions addressing any of the critical research questions, and particularly welcomes contributions on observations from instrumented mountain catchments, theoretical advances and on evaluation of hydrological and atmospheric models using observations to better understand model performance and to see if models reproduce known aspects and regimes of the coupled atmospheric-cryospheric-hydrological system.