Mountain guides facing the effects of climate change. What perceptions and adaptation strategies at the foot of Mont Blanc?

Abstract

The consequences of ongoing climate change are increasingly studied (Stocker et al., 2013). The way it modifies the glaciological and geomorphological characteristics of high mountains environments is a crucial topic (Haeberli et al., 2010; Einhorn et al., 2015; Beniston et al., 2018). However, while its impact on alpine skiing is well documented (Paccard, 2009; Joly and Ungureanu, 2018), its consequences on summer practises have been so far the subject of a more limited research. According to initial studies, high Alpine mountains seem to be more dangerous for mountaineering in general (

Last chance to see the ice: visitor motivation at Montenvers-Mer-de-Glace, French Alps

“…The compound name 'Chamonix-Mont-Blanc' dates from 1921, and the Mont Blanc massif is considered the birthplace of mountaineering (Hansen, 1995). It continues to be one of the most popular places for this practice in the Alps (Salim et al, 2019).…”

“…Downstream of the Montenvers train station, the glacier has lost about 100 m in thickness between 1990 and 2019 (Vincent et al, 2019). This retreat has already impacted the work of mountain guides (Salim et al, 2019) and climbing routes as access to mountain huts has diminished (Mourey & Ravanel, 2017) due to considerable changes to the landscape (Figure 2).…”

“…Some studies have investigated the recent dynamics of summer glacier skiing (e.g. Falk, 2016;Demiroglu et al, 2018;Mayer et al, 2018), changes in the perception of glacier-associated landscapes from trek paths or huts (Smiraglia et al, 2008;Diolaiuti & Smiraglia, 2010), the adaptation of mountain guides facing climate change and their risk perception (Pröbstl-Haider et al, 2016;Salim et al, 2019), and changes in mountaineering activities .…”

Modelling and characterizing glacier-bed overdeepenings as sites for potential future lakes in the deglaciating French Alps

“…Hazard potentials would have to be carefully assessed (GAPHAZ, 2017) in such cases. In addition, these results also raise questions in terms of attractiveness for tourism related to the perceptions of glacial and periglacial landscapes (Salim et al, 2019).…”

The Status of Earth Observation Techniques in Monitoring High Mountain Environments at the Example of Pasterze Glacier, Austria: Data, Methods, Accuracies, Processes, and Scales

“…Changes within a cryospheric environment in the form of glacier retreat result, e.g., in local hazard events [8,9], changes in regional water cycle systems [10][11][12], and sea level rise on a global scale [13,14]. The impacts of glacier retreat in a socio-economic context are far-reaching [15,16], affecting different areas from energy supply [15] to tourism [17,18]. As a consequence, glacier retreat induces hazards due to changing conditions within and different resilience of process systems [8].…”