Shifting lands : new insights into periglacial geomorphology : European Science Foundation - SEDIFLUX Network second meeting in Clermont-Ferrand, 20-22 January 2005

Climate change will cause major changes in the Earth surface systems and the most dramatic changes are expected to occur in the cold climate environments of the Earth. Cold climate landscapes are some of the last wilderness areas containing specialized and diverse plants and animals as well as large stores of soil carbon. Geomorphological processes, operating at the Earth's surface, transferring sediments and changing landforms are dependent on climate,vegetation cover and human impacts and will be significantly affected by climate change. In this context it is a major challenge to develop a better understanding of the complex ecosystems and the mechanisms and climatic controls of sedimentary transfer processes in cold environments. More reliable modelling of sediment transfer processes operating under present-day climatic settings is needed to determine the consequences of predicted climate change. It is necessary to collect and to compare data and knowledge from a wide range of different high latitude and high altitude environments and to develop more standardized methods and approaches for future research on sediment fluxes and relationships between climate and sedimentary transfer processes. In Europe the wide range of high latitude and high altitude environments provides great potential to investigate climate-process relationships and to model the effects of climate change by using space-time substitution. The highly relevant questions to be addressed need a multidisciplinary approach and the joining of forces and expertise from different scientific fields. Especially a closer cooperation between geoscientists and biologists/ ecologists is urgently needed and links between running global change programmes (ITEX etc.) and the ESF Network introduced here will be of major importance. The ESF Network “Sedimentary source-to-sink-fluxes in cold environments” (SEDIFLUX, 2004 – 2006), will bring together leading scientists, key researchers, young scientists and research teams from different fields. The large number of projects run by the ESF Network participants demonstrates the high level of research activity of scientists working on sediment fluxes in different cold environments. The Network will form a framework for an integrated and multidisciplinary investigation of the research topic and will be a catalyst for strengthening and extending contacts and exchange