21st century climate change in the European Alps—A review

Abstract

Reliable estimates of future climate change in the Alps are relevant for large parts of the European society. At the same time, the complex Alpine region poses considerable challenges to climate models, which translate to uncertainties in the climate projections. Against this background, the present study reviews the state-of-knowledge about 21st century climate change in the Alps based on existing literature and additional analyses. In particular, it explicitly considers the reliability and uncertainty of climate projections. Results show that besides Alpine temperatures, also precipitation, global radiation, relative humidity, and closely related impacts like floods, droughts, snow cover, and natural hazards will be affected by global warming. Under the A1B emission scenario, about 0.25 °C warming per decade until the mid of the 21st century and accelerated 0.36 °C warming per decade in the second half of the century is expected. Warming will probably be associated with changes in the seasonality of precipitation, global radiation, and relative humidity, and more intense precipitation extremes and flooding potential in the colder part of the year. The conditions of currently record breaking warm or hot winter or summer seasons, respectively, may become normal at the end of the 21st century, and there is indication for droughts to become more severe in the future. Snow cover is expected to drastically decrease below 1500-2000 m and natural hazards related to glacier and permafrost retreat are expected to become more frequent. Such changes in climatic parameters and related quantities will have considerable impact on ecosystems and society and will challenge their adaptive capabilities.

Landslides and synoptic weather trends in the European Alps

“…Precipitation, particularly extreme events, is less well constrained in climate models than temperature (e.g. Beniston et al 2007;Kjellström et al 2011;Gobiet et al 2014) and the use of weather types presents an alternative approach to these challenges posed as well as the potential for weather typing being used as a predictive tool for landslide events under differing future climate scenarios.…”

Flood risk, climate change and settlement development: a micro-scale assessment of Austrian municipalities

“…due to higher temperatures or rising snowlines (APCC 2014;HISTALP 2013). Daily precipitation amounts and annual maximum daily precipitation are anticipated to increase over many areas (Christensen and Christensen 2002;Kundzewicz et al 2010), increasing the probability that climate change will lead to more severe floods in the Alps (Formayer and Kromp-Kolb 2009;Gobiet et al 2014).…”

Women as Drivers for a Sustainable and Social Inclusive Development in Mountain Regions – The Case of the Austrian Alps

“…This refers not only to rising temperatures (+2℃), but also to changes in the seasonal cycle of precipitation, global radiation, and humidity, to changes in temperature and precipitation extremes, and closely related impacts like floods, droughts, snow cover (drastically decreased below 1500-2000 m), and natural hazards (such as floods, debris flows, landslides and rockfalls associated amongst others to glacier and permafrost retreat). This changing in climatic parameters and related quantities will have considerable impact on ecosystems, agricultural production and Alpine societies, and will challenge their resilience (Gobiet et al 2014.…”

“…The female breeder has set herself the goal of preserving and breeding the peacock goats. For more than 20 years, she has been searching all over Austria for phenotypically similar peacock goats, in order to re-establish a purebred stock 7 .…”