Introduction
High mountain areas have been experiencing decline in permafrost, snow cover and glacier mass due to climate change in recent decades (IPCC, 2019). Tropical glaciers, in particular, are listed as one of the unique and threatened ecosystems in Reason for Concern 1 established by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (Smith et al, 2009).
Their latest report has confirmed that glaciers are melting at unprecedented rates, leading to damaging effects, such as water insecurity and changes on cultural uses of water, on communities and species who rely on cryospheric resources (IPCC, 2022). The IPCC has also shown with high confidence that small glaciers, such as those in Scandinavia and Tropical Andes, will lose most of their total mass at only 1.5°C warming.