Permafrost temperatures in Europe’s mountain regions are rising steadily, in some cases by more than 1°C over the last decade. The results of a new study show larger and faster changes than before.
A data set of 64 measurement series from nine European countries, from Svalbard in the far North to the Alps and the Sierra Nevada in southern Spain on permafrost temperatures in Europe’s mountains has been collected and analyzed by more than 20 permafrost researchers under the leadership of SLF scientist Jeannette Nötzli.
They present their research in a study published in Nature Communications. The results clearly show for the first time that mountain permafrost is getting warmer throughout Europe. In the last 10 years, the temperature at a depth of 10 meters has increased by more than 1°C at some locations.
“The warming of permafrost in the mountains is significant,” says Nötzli, “and it is observed in all regions, depths and time periods that we have looked at.”
The cold regions where permafrost occurs—the high mountains and the polar regions—react particularly sensitively to climate change. The study now shows that the increase in permafrost temperatures in the mountain regions of Europe is partly similar to that in the Arctic: The researchers observed the greatest warming at the highest and northernmost locations.