In January 2022, the new Joint Body on the "Status of Mountain Snow Cover (JB-SMSC)" was launched. This Joint Body is a joint activity of the International Association for Cryospheric Sciences (IACS), the Mountain Research Initiative (MRI), and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), aiming to significantly improve the knowledge of the status and changes of the snow cover in mountain regions of the world. In addition to an in-depth analysis of snow changes and the underlying processes, the provision of data sets on snow cover in mountain regions is also a key objective. The JB is divided into four work packages, as follows:

More information can be found here.

The project will run for four years (2022-2025) and aims to produce high-quality data sets, publications, analysis tools, and manuals/protocols for international standardization. The initiative is bottom-up and invites all interested snow researchers to contribute. Participating researchers are expected to contribute to the initiative in-kind in the form of working time, and specially contribute to WP1 or WP2 as the basis of the whole plan at this initiating stage. Colleagues who are interested in leading a work package will have to calculate a correspondingly higher workload.

With this email we call upon all interested snow researchers to participate and register via the following link (one of those links should work for all browsers):

Please include a rough estimate of the working time that can be contributed to the initiative as well as a focus of interest for a work package. Registration is possible until May 27th 2022. There will still be opportunities to contribute to the initiative after this deadline, but the initial work package membership and leadership will be based on this call. The first meeting of the team of WP-chairs and JB-chairs is planned for early June 2022 (to be coordinated between participants).

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

Wolfgang Schöner, <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Lijuan Ma, <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Shawn Marshall, <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>

(Chairs of the JB-SMSC)