NORTH-EAST scientists are among a team of international academics calling for urgent action after finding that mountains may be warming faster than previously thought.

The researchers say that without better information, there is a risk of underestimating the severity of water shortages and the possible extinction of some alpine flora and fauna.

The research is published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Co-authors of the research, Professor Hayley Fowler and Dr Nathan Forsythe, from Newcastle University, have been working on climate change in the Himalayas for over a decade.

Prof Fowler said: “Changes to climate, glaciers and snow cover in the high mountains of Asia are of vital importance for water supplies to a fifth of the world’s population, so understanding past changes are key to understanding what might happen in the future.

This paper highlights the need for additional monitoring in high elevation locations worldwide, but particularly in the less researched Himalayan region.”

Lead author, Dr Nick Pepin of Portsmouth University, said: “Most current predictions are based on incomplete and imperfect data, but if we are right and mountains are warming more rapidly than other environments, the social and economic consequences could be serious, and we could see much more dramatic changes much sooner than previously thought.”

The most striking evidence that mountain regions are warming more rapidly than surrounding regions comes from the Tibetan plateau.

Here temperatures have risen steadily over the past 50 years and the rate of change is speeding up.