Global Warming and Mountain Environment

抄録

　This study first reviews development of mountain research on climate and environment changes under the influence of global change. International programmes related to mountain climates and environments were established in the 1970s, e.g., ‘the High-Altitude Geoecology Commission’ of the IGU, and ‘MAB-6’ by UNESCO, and in the 1980s, e.g., ‘ALPEX’ of ‘the WCP.’ These, however, were not concerned with the effect of global warming. Since the latter half of the 1980s, an IIASA programme, global warming has become one of the main topics. Representative activities included ‘the WCC’, ‘IPCC’, ‘Mountain Agenda’ and ‘MA (Millennium Assessment)’. It should be pointed out that global warming was one of the topics discussed at international symposiums, meetings and conferences by experts in the 1980s, but international cooperative studies and programmes have taken place mainly since the 1990s. Secondly, this discusses recent changes in physical environments from the viewpoint of global scale, taking examples from air temperatures, snow accumulation, glaciation and vegetation. Thirdly, this study discusses the possible impacts of global change on a regional scale, taking examples from Temperate Asia. Physical as well as human-sociological systems like tourism, agricultural land use and forestry, water resource use and other activities are considered and summarized in a table. The last part of the study discusses changes in daily maximum, minimum and mean air temperature and air temperature lapse rates, taking examples of Mt. Fuji and other mountains in Japan. The study concludes by presenting, items for future needed studies.