Climate change leads to loss of snow cover and increased ‘greening’ in the European Alps – Can that be improved?
American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Satellite imagery of the European Alps spanning the past 38 years shows that climate change is reducing snow cover and increasing crop yields, a process known as “greening”. The findings suggest that, although alpine greening may increase carbon sequestration in the region, feedback between snow and vegetation is more likely to lead to more pronounced environmental changes in future, including strong warming, permafrost thawing and increased habitat loss. Mountain landscapes are biodiversity hotspots and provide a wide range of important ecosystem services. For example, meltwater from alpine glaciers and snow supplies nearly half of the world’s fresh water. However, mountainous environments are also more sensitive to climate change – warming almost twice as fast as the global average. This is expected to affect snow cover and vegetation yield in alpine regions, like in the Arctic. To identify these effects in the European Alps, the highest and widest mountain range in Europe, Sabine Rumpf and colleagues used Landsat images and assessed spatial and temporal trends in the mantle. snow and vegetation production from 1984-2021. According to the findings, snow cover across the region has decreased significantly, although less than 10% of the area studied. On the other hand, the yield of vegetation has increased over 77% of the above cultivars in the study area. The feedback loop between greening and snow degradation suggests that continued greening is likely to accelerate snowmelt, which could have important effects, including changing the region’s albedo (capability). solar reflectivity), which has the potential to release greenhouse gases through permafrost melting and ecological disruption, putting alpine plant and animal communities at risk. more threatening.
JOURNEYS
Science
DOI
ARTICLE TITLE
From white to green: Loss of snow cover and increase in vegetation yield in the European Alps
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
June 3, 2022
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