Blowing Hot and Cold: Glacier Microclimate can Help Understand Impacts of Climate Change on Forests Communities

Abstract

Mountain regions cover roughly one-fourth of the Earth's surface, store most snow and ice outside polar regions and are hotspots of species richness. Regrettably, they are also viewed as climate hotspots where change can anticipate/amplify what is occurring elsewhere on Earth. Current rates of warming are expected to double within decades, thereby becoming an order of magnitude faster than what most ecosystems have experienced over millennia. By monitoring contemporary microclimatic conditions around La Perouse Glacier (Alaska) and reconstructing locations of past ice margins, Gaglioti et al. (2022, https://doi.org/10.1029/2022GL098574) quantify local climate change over the last two centuries. Rates of cooling and warming at their site are beyond expectations, and outside human experience. Their “natural laboratory” experiment provides key insights into likely impacts of future climate change on tree vitality and growth and therefore is a stepping stone for the assessment of how trees have responded (and will likely respond) to fast-paced warming.