Study: How Climate Change Threatens Mountaintops (and Clean Water)

Mountains are far more than rocks. They also confer various natural benefits—for example, about half of the world’s drinking water filters through their high-elevation forests, plants, and soils.Now, a new, first-of-its kind study, in the journal Nature, shows how these mountain ecosystems around the globe may be threatened by climate change.Rising temperatures over the next decades appear likely to “decouple” key nutrient cycles in mountain soils and plants, an inte