Climate warming enhances snow avalanche risk in the Western Himalayas.

ABSTRACT: Ongoing climate warming has been demonstrated to impact the cryosphere in the Indian Himalayas, with substantial consequences for the risk of disasters, human well-being, and terrestrial ecosystems. Here, we present evidence that the warming observed in recent decades has been accompanied by increased snow avalanche frequency in the Western Indian Himalayas. Using dendrogeomorphic techniques, we reconstruct the longest time series (150 y) of the occurrence and runout distances of snow avalanches that is currently available for the Himalayas. We apply a generalized linear autoregressive moving average model to demonstrate linkages between climate warming and the observed increase in the incidence of snow avalanches. Warming air temperatures in winter and early spring have indeed favored the

SUBMITTER: Ballesteros-Canovas JA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5879669 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature