Description:

Mountain ranges worldwide are experiencing unprecedented changes in their hydrology, including timing and amount of water discharge, snowpack, precipitation amount and phase, radiation, aerosols, clouds, and land-cover characteristics.  Together and separately, these changes are a result of some combination of atmospheric, surface, and subsurface processes and point to the need for studies of such processes, observations, and longitudinal and long-term analyses.  They also highlight the need for investigations that expand past the so-called “critical zone,” the region extending from bedrock to vegetation canopy, to include the lower atmosphere as well.  Therefore, integrated mountainous hydrology requires extending atmospheric science investigations below the surface and conversely extending subsurface and surface science investigations into the troposphere. We welcome studies that use data from major field activities such as the DOE SAIL and Watershed Function SFA, NOAA SPLASH and Hydrometeorological Testbeds, and NSF SOS and CZO. 

Submissions might use observing systems ranging from locally-deployed to satellite-based sensors, or modeling tools spanning hillslope to watershed-scale processes to global climate models. Ideally these studies describe efforts to develop deeper scientific understanding of key processes, and advance water and weather prediction capabilities across a variety of timescales.  The use of vertically-integrated data, analysis, and/or modeling to gain insights into and make substantial progress on persistent challenges for predicting change in mountainous systems are particularly encouraged.