Ramírez, a glaciologist at the Higher University of San Andrés in Bolivia, received training in the use of CRNS data under an IAEA technical cooperation (TC) programme, as part of a decade of IAEA projects to build countries’ capacity to assess the effects of climate change in glacial and polar regions using nuclear techniques. “Travelling to Nepal gave me the opportunity to share my expertise with scientists in other regions,” said Ramírez. “The CRNS will help scientists understand better how the glacier is changing over time, and its potential impact on soil and water resources.”
The disappearance of snow and ice has serious consequences in Nepal. Millions of people rely on water from glacial melt or snow-melt. When these water sources dry up, entire villages are abandoned. As glaciers disappear, there is also the risk that soil will become unstable, creating erosion and landslides and making farming impossible.
Before travelling to Nepal, Ramírez, working with the IAEA, helped install the highest CRNS in the world to measure snow accumulation and its water equivalent on Bolivia’s Huayna Potosí mountain peak, 4500 metres above sea level, where communities are also experiencing water scarcity due to glacier loss. In the same watershed, another CRNS monitors soil moisture in high altitude wetlands. These watersheds are critical carbon reservoirs that play a key role in buffering regional water supplies, and are therefore particularly vulnerable to climate change.
Working in mountainous and polar regions such as Antarctica and the Arctic, IAEA experts have also trained local scientists in the use of isotopic analysis and complementary methods to reconstruct how historical changes in climate have affected these regions over millennia. Chemical and isotopic ‘fingerprints’ can reveal how glacial melt has affected the movement and quality of soil, enabling countries to prepare for the future.
“We have to understand the driving factors behind climate change and its impact on soil and water resources by examining historical patterns,” said Gerd Dercon, Head of the Soil, Water Management and Crop Nutrition Section at the Joint FAO/IAEA Centre. “Will climate change trigger feedback loops that accelerate global warming, for example by reducing surface reflectivity due to diminished snow and ice cover? By studying the past, we can better understand the future.”
The IAEA is delivering a series of projects related to climate change in polar and mountainous regions. So far, it has trained scientists from 14 countries. A team comprising these scientists and IAEA experts has participated in 15 scientific expeditions across the world. These training opportunities and expeditions — from King George Island in Antarctica to the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard in the Arctic, and from the Andes to the eastern Tibetan Plateau — are striking examples of South–South and triangular cooperation in action: a key delivery mechanism for the TC programme.
An important outcome of these expeditions has been the establishment of an international monitoring network, with an IAEA-hosted e-learning platform providing education and training in the storage, sharing and visualization of data. The network has uncovered previously unknown processes in soil organic carbon and sediment redistribution, and has provided insights into how the parts of the world covered by ice (known as the ‘cryosphere’) are impacted by climate change.
Nearly two billion people — a quarter of the global population — live in areas where glaciers and seasonal snow-melt supply them with water. Climate change is already affecting water and food security, potentially threatening some of the world’s most fragile ecosystems and underscoring the importance of accurate, real-time data to help the world adapt to life on a warming planet.
