Enhanced permafrost warming in European mountains in the early 21st century
Résumé
Mountain permafrost, constituting 30% of the global permafrost area, is highly sensitive to climate change and strongly influences mountain ecosystems and communities. This study quantifies 21 st century mountain permafrost warming by compiling a quality-controlled permafrost temperature data set obtained in sixty boreholes at monitoring sites in European mountains. Each time series spans one to three decades, enabling a comprehensive assessment of mountain permafrost warming patterns in Europe, from the Alps, across Scandinavia to Svalbard in the high Arctic. We find consistent permafrost warming patterns across, all observed sites, depths and time periods. For the early 21st century, warming rates at 10 and 20 meters depth exceeded 1 °C per decade in cases, and are generally higher than previously reported as a result of both, accelerated warming and a more comprehensive data set. Substantial warming notably occurs at cold and ice-poor bedrock sites at both high latitudes and high elevations, with the permafrost warming rates being comparable to warming rates of air temperature.
For ice-rich sites close to the melting point instead, latent heat effects reduce temperature changes, thus obscuring important changes ongoing in ice-rich permafrost substrates.
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