Climate change impacts on mountain glaciers and permafrost

Due to their proximity to melting conditions under terrestrial conditions, mountain glaciers and permafrost are particularly sensitive to climate changes. In fact, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recognizes glaciers as the best terrestrial indicator of climate change, due both to their sensitivity to climatic variations and the clear visibility of glacier growth and shrinkage to the public (McCarthy et al., 2001). Mountain and lowland permafrost are similarly sensitive to climate changes because of their strong dependency on climatic conditions at the ground-atmosphere interface and the subsurface ice often involved (e.g., Osterkamp and Romanovsky, 1999; Harris et al., 2001). However, much less is known about the response of permafrost to changes in boundary conditions due to the wide variety of surface and ground conditions, and the complex interplay of the processes involved. Permafrost reacts in amuch delayed and attenuatedway to climatic changes compared to glaciers. Thus, both glaciers and permafrost together make up a key set of targets for monitoring climate change and its impact on terrestrial systems in cold regions (