About This Project

The Pyrenean glaciers are important source of water for the surrounding alpine ecosystems and people living there. These glaciers are very sensitive to climate change, which is accelerating their melting rate. It is expected that in a few decades the summits of the Pyrenees mountains will be free of ice. This research aims to estimate the current area and volume of ice of the Pyrenean glaciers in order to help to determine the rate of shrinkage of these ice masses within the next decades.

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

Since the beginning of the 19th century, all southern European glaciers have drastically retreated, losing most of their volume. The European southernmost glaciers are located in mid-latitudes on the Iberian, Apennine and Balkan Peninsulas (Grunewald and Scheithauer, 2010). Climate models predict future warming and drier conditions, which will likely result in the loss of all southern European glaciers within the next decades. This project, named PYRENEEND, will study the current state of the glaciers in the Pyrenees, a range of mountains in Europe that forms a natural border between Spain and France. Beyond the physical measurements of the glaciers, the study will also analyze the influence of these glaciers on the surrounding ecosystems and the socioeconomic context of the region.

What is the significance of this project?

Climate change is affecting most of the world's ice masses. Due to their small size and geographical location, alpine glaciers are particularly sensitive to temperature increases or changes in precipitation. The extent and thickness of the Pyrenean glaciers is decreasing since the end of the Little Ice Age period (1850 approximately) (Marti et al., 2015) and they are predicted to disappear by the middle of this century. Some studies have dettermined the approximate areas of these glaciers, but the thickness and the overall volume of ice is not well known. Moreover, the ecological and socioeconomic effects that the loss of these ice masses would have in their watershed basins, has not yet been studied.

What are the goals of the project?

The main goal is to estimate the volume of ice remaining in the Pyrenean glaciers in order to help to determine the approximate period from which they will disappear completely and to understand the ecological and socioeconomic consequences of such loss. Additionally, we aim to analyze the effects that losing these ice masses would have in the surrounding ecosystems and the influence over the socioeconomic context of the watersheds. In order to analyze the evolution of these glaciers over a longer period of time, we will also study the evolution of the glaciers of the main massif in the past through glacial reconstruction techniques, using a combination of physical-based models and geomorphological evidence.