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| Climate Change and the European Alps | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change has the potential of occurring on a global scale.According to various studies, over the past century, global temperatures have risen on an average of 0.4oC and it has projected that it could be up to 4oC by the next century. Climate change has the potential of causing various effects of it worldwide. All aspects of an ecosystem can be affected by the warming of global temperatures. The alpine tundra is no exception to being affected by this global phenomenon. The alpine tundra and other mountainous areas are particularly sensitive to the effects of climate change.The increased temperatures can cause the snowfall to decrease and make the glaciers retreat rather than coming forward (Weber et al. 1997). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The European Alps are an 800 km long and 200 km wide mountain range (Wanneret al. 1997).The European Alps are a mountain range that was formed by the crashing of two plates from the north and south, or a convergent boundary. The range is located in south-central portion of Europe. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In European's history, the climate has clearly varied over the past 6000 years (Cheddadietal. 1997), particularly during the Middle Ages. During the years from 1205 through 1207 and 1220-1221, the climate was rather warm during the winter months. There was evidence that there ripe strawberries found on Christmas Day in southern Europe (Pfisteret al. 1998). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In 763-764, there were characteristics of extreme winter episodes. Typically, the extreme cold temperatures lasted for 120-140 days of the year, which was considered to be the longest cold period in 1300 years (Pfisteret al. 1998). During this time, everything in southern Europe was extensively frozen.Another extreme cold period occurred from 1001 to 1300, which involved long durations of snowfall almost every singular year (Pfisteret al.1998). Numerous trees were damaged by the extreme winter conditions. Also the rivers and lakes that are in the Alps experienced extreme frozen conditions, which caused catastrophic floods when the ice melted (Pfisteret al. 1998). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The change that is currently happening in the European Alps can cause increases in various types of hazards such as landslides and avalanches. Also this can ultimately affect the stability of the slopes for the plant cover in the Alps mountain range (Keller et al. 2000). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Effects on Vegetation | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The European Alps are no exception on being affected by climate change. Any shifts in climate in the mountainous areas can cause shifts in vegetation due to the changing of temperature and precipitation. Also, cold weather species can migrate upward due to changing conditions of the environment (Keller et al. 2000; Theurilat and Guisan 2001) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The alpine tundra plants are great examples on how to determine what the climate is doing due to that they are longevity and quite sensitive to the smallest changes in the climate. They tend to show the conditions of climate over their life-span (3-600 years), ranging from frost damage to other climatic injuries (Theurilat and Guisan 2001). Also, climate change causes new ecological variables that the plants have to adapt to, so that is another good indicator on how climate change can affect the European Alps (Theurilat and Guisan 2001). The impacts of climate change can also affect the biological processes that the plants depend on in order to survive such as rates of photosynthesis, respiration, and growth rate (Theurilat and Guisan 2001). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| If the temperatures definitely increase in the European Alps mountain range, it would be possible that snow-resistant plants could move into the habitat. Also plants that are more adaptive to colder climates would most likely migrate to the higher elevations (Keller et al. 2000). This would also affect where the treeline would migrate to in the European Alps. It would probably move slightly higher in the elevations due to that it is colder up there. This is due to that the location of the treeline is a good indicator about the conditions of the climate in terms of temperature. When there have been experiences in warmer temperatures, the treeline tends to move to the higher elevations. Whereas, when the temperatures are colder, the treeline has a tendency to move to the lower elevations. Some studies have indicted that there has been a shifting species composition in the past 40 years. This indicates that there are some signs that the global climate is changing in the European Alps mountain range (Keller et al. 2000). It also indicates that there has been an occurrence of warm-loving plants moving into the European Alps. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change can also have an effect on the fire ecology in the European Alps. These disturbances can have the potential of masking the impacts of global climate change (Carcaillet 1998). The way of determining the history of fires that occurred in the European Alps mountain range is either by looking at tree cores or by carbon dating. In the mountain range, the occurrences of fires tend to be having happened in various time periods in the ecotone zones in the alpine tundra. Most of the fires occurred between 2000 and 5000 years ago (Carcaillet 1998). The reason why there a span of 3000 years is because the alpine tundra climate tends to be dry and the European Alps signify that fact. These climatic factors tend to have some control of the occurrence of fires in the alpine tundra. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change can also affect the development and condition of the soils in the European Alps mountain ranges. The development of various types of soils can be disturbed by the impacts of climate change. These can have severe consequences on the biological processes in the ecosystem (Theurillat and Guisan 2001). For instance, landslides and avalanches can become more frequent due to the impacts of climate change on the slopes of the mountains (Scalengheet al. 2002). This would ultimately affect the soil properties in the European Alps. For instance, there can be a small variation in the distribution of particle sizes in the A horizon. Also, there can be sharp decrease in soil properties below the A horizon which would then reflect the organic carbon in the soil profile (Scalengheet al. 2002). As a result, the soils tend to develop on disturbed soils (Scalengheet al. 2002). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Effects on snow | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| There are indications that climate change can affect the snow, which is variable, in the European Alps mountain ranges. In the European Alps, the various forms of precipitation are highly spatially and temporally variable. Many things can affect the precipitation in the European Alps such as the jet streams in the Atlantic Ocean and the air pressure over the mountain ranges (Martin et al. 1997; Hantelet al. 2000; Schmidliet al. 2002). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The maximum snow coverage tends to be towards the northwest of the Alps.It also decreases towards the southeast portion of the mountain range due to the effects of several climatic conditions. Also, the temperature in the Alps tends to be variable due to the observed air fields in Europe. At various elevations, the snow cover and temperature have been determined to be correlated (Martin et al. 1997; Schmidliet al. 2002). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Also, there have been studies that indicate that the duration of snow cover tends to increase with elevation during all of the seasons. In the European Alps, the snow duration is the shortest in the warm climate, whereas, it is the longest in the cold climate. Also there tends to be more differences in snow cover in the spring rather than in the winter (Hantelet al. 2000). Due to Austrian tests, it was determined that the sensitively of the snow cover in the Alps, temperature is independent of height (Hantelet al. 2000). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ; All these possible impacts of climate change would ultimately affect the tourism industry, especially the skiing in the Alps. These climate impacts showed how they can jeopardize the tourism industry from 1988 to 1990 because the Alps experienced very warm winters. As a result, the various ski resorts had extreme deficiencies in snow cover. There were heavy drops in the number of skiers at the various ski resorts along the European Alps. However, the glacier resorts at high altitudes benefited from the unfavorable snow conditions at the lower altitude ski resorts. The glacier ski resorts were able to provide an early start of the ski season and had reliable snow conditions. Whereas, the lower altitude ski resorts could not provide a good start of the ski season (Koenig and Abegg 1997). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| If climate change does cause the warmer temperatures in the European Alps, the above mention scenario could happen. The snowline would be higher than 300 meters and the first snowfall could be delayed in the Alps by one month. This may cause some of the countries to lose their winter tourism industry, their main economic base, due to the impacts of climate change (Koenig and Abegg 1997). In Switzerland, there has been a steady decline in the number of skiers due to that there has been a pattern in the climate where there has been periods of very warm years (Koenig and Abegg 1997; Beniston and Rebetz 1996). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change will definitely have some potential impacts if it does show its mean face in the alpine tundra of the European Alps.The European Alps definitely is showing the impacts from climate change due to the sensitively of the biome. Some of the impacts have shown the effects that they can have on the social environment in the Alps, such as the tourism industry, which is highly influenced by the climatic conditions. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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