Smith et al. (2025) Strongly Heterogeneous Surface‐Water Warming Trends in High Mountain Asia

⚠️ Warning: This summary was generated from the abstract only, as the full text was not available.

Identification

• Journal: Geophysical Research Letters
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-11-23
• Authors: Taylor Smith, Bodo Bookhagen
• DOI: 10.1029/2025gl119418

Research Groups

Not available from the abstract.

Short Summary

This study examines long-term (1994–2023) and high-resolution (30 m) changes in water-surface temperature across High Mountain Asia, revealing a significant increase in temperatures, particularly in snow-covered regions, with an acceleration in the last decade and surface water warming faster than land.

Objective

• To examine long-term (1994–2023) and high-resolution (30 m) changes in water-surface temperature over a large and topographically diverse region encompassing the world's highest mountains.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Large and topographically diverse region encompassing the world's highest mountains, with a resolution of 30 meters.
• Temporal Scale: Long-term, from 1994 to 2023.

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Not specified in the abstract.
• Data sources: Not explicitly specified in the abstract, but implies high-resolution surface temperature measurements.

Main Results

• Water-surface temperatures have significantly increased across the vast majority of the study area, with rates up to 0.3 °C and an average increase of 0.1 °C.
• The warming is particularly pronounced in snow-covered regions.
• A notable acceleration in water-surface temperature increase has been observed over the past decade.
• Surface water is warming faster than nearby land areas.
• Changes in the cryosphere are posited to induce strong spatial heterogeneities in surface-water warming, leading to both drastic increases and localized decreases in surface-water temperature.

Contributions

• Provides a long-term (1994–2023) and high-resolution (30 m) analysis of water-surface temperature changes in High Mountain Asia.
• Quantifies the significant increase in water-surface temperatures and identifies an acceleration in warming over the last decade.
• Highlights that surface water is warming faster than adjacent land areas.
• Proposes a mechanism (cryosphere changes) for the observed spatial heterogeneity in surface-water warming.

Funding

Not available from the abstract.

Citation

@article{Smith2025Strongly,
  author = {Smith, Taylor and Bookhagen, Bodo},
  title = {Strongly Heterogeneous Surface‐Water Warming Trends in High Mountain Asia},
  journal = {Geophysical Research Letters},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.1029/2025gl119418},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1029/2025gl119418}
}