MOUNTAIN CLIMATOLOGY AND PAST AND POTENTIAL FUTURE CLIMATIC CHANGES IN MOUNTAIN REGIONS - A REVIEW

Climatic knowledge of mountain regions is limited by paucity of observations and insufficient theoretical attention to processes within these regions. This review article discusses the basic controls of mountain climate and the scales of climatic features, and illustrates data availability in several mountainous regions. Areas where our understanding is incomplete include orographic precipitation, especially extreme events, pollutant transport and deposition, and effects of forest cover on evapotranspiration and runoff. Sources of evidence for past climatic conditions in mountain areas are surveyed and particular aspects of mountain-lowland climate differences during the last glacial maximum, the Little Ice Age, and the 100-year observational record are noted. Finally, analogue and modeling approaches to assessing potential future climatic states are discussed in the context of mountain areas. The significance of such states in terms of snow cover and snowmelt runoff is described. The survey concludes with a series of recommendations for necessary actions.