German public radio Deutschlandfunk (DLF) reported earlier this year that scientists have discovered that twice as much snow has been falling in the Ural Mountains than 100 years ago.
Yugyd Va National Park. Public domain photo.
Hat-tip: Die kalte Sonne here.
The DLF reports:
Ural: snow causing the tree line to rise.
Climate change does not only mean that the temperature is increasing, it can also change the precipitation patterns. In the Ural Mountains of Russia significantly more snow is falling in the wintertime than 100 years ago. The development is having surprising consequences: The bigger amounts of snow is causing the tree line to rise. […]In the summertime in the Urals its has not gotten notably warmer over the past 100 years. The wintertime temperatures, however, have increased from minus 18°C to minus 16°C. Warmer low pressure systems are bringing more precipitation to the mountains. In the Urals today twice as much snow is falling than 100 years ago. And that is having an impact on the treeline.”
According to the DLF, a team of German and Russian scientists say the tree line is currently rising at a rate of about 4 to 6 meters per decade.
The scientists believe that the doubled snowfall serves to protect young saplings during the winter and allow soil conditions that foster growth during the summer time. Photos of the region has allowed the scientists to determine treelines that today are up to 60 meters higher than 100 years ago.
I checked the GISS records for Njaksimvol’, a rural station on the east side of the Urals. The summer increase is 1.8°C/century, and the winter increase is 0.8°C/century. Just the opposite of what they found. Did they measure the temperatures at the tree line for that 100-year span? Of course not.
That’s Njaksimvol after Gavin had his fingers on it.
It’s interesting to compare this claim that Global Warming pushes the tree-line up to higher altitudes with earlier studies that used tree-line lowering findings as proof that the past was much colder than today and therefore we’re all going to fry!
Climate Science – where cognitive dissonance is a mandatory requirement!
Too little information. Send more funding and someone that would consider all the reasons why there is change (if, in fact, there is). Some of Richard Feynman’s quotes come to mind.
I flew over the tree line on a trip to Canada. Amazing how clear the tree line is demarcated in practice. Just aside, 4 to 6 metres per decade compared to scale of the land is hardly a gallop.
More CO2 couldn’t possibly have a thing to do with it…
Well, alright…my name is JIM and Pierre Gosselin and I were roommates in a dormitory at the University of Arizona a long, long time ago. We have had no contact in more than 30 years. I got curious and googled his name the other night, and lo and behold
Are there any additional data between 100 years and now? Pretty sketchy drawing conclusions from 2 data points. Could be the bluejays crapping seeds higher in elevation for all we know.