Heterogeneous changes of soil microclimate in high mountains and glacier forelands

Abstract
Landscapes nearby glaciers are disproportionally affected by climate change, but we lack detailed information on microclimate variations that can modulate the impacts of global warming on proglacial ecosystems and their biodiversity. Here, we use near-subsurface soil temperatures in 175 stations from polar, equatorial and alpine glacier forelands to generate high-resolution temperature reconstructions, assess spatial variability in microclimate change from 2001 to 2020, and estimate whether microclimate heterogeneity might buffer the severity of warming trends. Temporal changes in microclimate are tightly linked to broad-scale conditions, but the rate of local warming shows great spatial heterogeneity, with faster warming nearby glaciers and during the warm season, and an extension of the snow-free season. Still, most of the fine-scale spatial variability of microclimate is one-to-ten times larger than the temporal change experienced during the past 20 years, indicating the potential for microclimate to buffer climate change, possibly allowing organisms to withstand, at least temporarily, the effects of warming.

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Details

Published: Aug 31, 2023
Vol/Issue: 14(1)
License: View

Authors

Department of Biosciences University of Milan Milan Italy

Department of Environmental Science and Policy University of Milan via Celoria 26 Milan 20133 Italy

R

Roberto Sergio Azzoni

Department of Earth Sciences ‘A. Desio’ University of Milan via Mangiagalli 34 Milan 20133 Italy

Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences University of Milano‐Bicocca Piazza della Scienza 1 Milan 20126 Italy

W

Wilfried Thuiller

Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique-Unité Mixte de Recherche 5175, 1919 Route de Mende, 34293 Montpellier Cedex 5, France; Climate Change Research Group, Kirstenbosch Research Center, National Botanical Institute, P/Bag x7, Claremont 7735, Cape Town, South Africa; Macroecology and Conservation Unit, University of Évora, Estrada dos Leões, 7000-730 Évora, Portugal; Laboratoire d'Ecologie Alpine, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique-Unité...

A

Antonello Provenzale

G

Gentile Francesco Ficetola

Funding

EC | Horizon 2020 Framework Programme Award: 772284

Cite This Article

Silvio Marta, Anaïs Zimmer, MARCO CACCIANIGA, et al. (2023). Heterogeneous changes of soil microclimate in high mountains and glacier forelands. Nature Communications, 14(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-41063-6

Heterogeneous changes of soil microclimate in high mountains and glacier forelands

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