FS 3.163: Macro-scale microclimate changes in global mountains

Macro-scale climatic changes are strongly affecting mountain ecosystems worldwide. Yet, most records and predictions beyond a local extent rely on sparse, standardised measurements or coarse spatial interpolations that do not reflect the high environmental variability in mountains, nor the fact that life in mountains mostly happens close to or underneath the ground surface. We are therefore largely lacking empirical knowledge how mountain biota, on a macro-ecological scale, have experienced recent climate change locally, and how further climate change will affect valuable mountain biodiversity at large through in-situ microclimatic changes. For this session, we invite contributions – advancing our ability to monitor or predict microclimate change, from regional to large-scale extents; – illustrating the magnitude and variability of microclimatic changes in mountain systems; and – demonstrating how they have affected, or are projected to affect, populations of mountain organisms, communities or ecological interactions. Besides ecological aspects of microclimate change, we aim to facilitate interdisciplinary understanding in microclimate science by also welcoming input from adjacent fields such as meteorology, hydrology or technology. We expect to gather valuable and diverse perspectives on the state-of-the-art of this emerging topic, and to share experiences and inspiration for advancing the field of macro-scale microclimate change research.