Permafrost Temperature Rise Threatens High Altitude Structures

31st December 2024

The temperature of the permafrost across Europe’s mountains is rising steadily and faster than in the past, according to a recent study. It claims the warming is putting high alpine structures at risk. NEW

The research is published in the scientific journal, Nature.

It says the warming and degradation of the permafrost has ‘implications for the stability of steep, perennially frozen mountain slopes with potentially far-reaching impacts and risk to both human safety and infrastructure’.

Permafrost is the permanently frozen rocks, debris or moraine at altitude that many structures, such as ski lifts and huts, are built into and rely on for stability.

It is mainly found above 2,500 metres.

High altitude alpine structures, France. Image © PlanetSKI

The study looked at warming patterns of mountain permafrost across Europe up to the year 2022.

The researchers gathered data from 64 boreholes at least 10 metres deep in 9 countries and measured for at least a decade.

The sites analysed were:

29 in the Western Alps (Switzerland, Italy, France)
15 in the Eastern and Central Alps (Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Italy)
13 in Scandinavia (Norway and Sweden)
4 in Iceland
2 in the Arctic Svalbard
1 in the Spanish Sierra Nevada

No information is available from other European mountain regions, such as the Pyrenees.

Twenty researchers were involved in collecting and analysing the data, led by Jeannette Nötzli of the SLF, an institute that studies mountain environments and natural hazards.

“The warming of permafrost in the mountains is significant and it is observed in all regions, depths and time periods that we have looked at,” Jeannette Nötzli says.

The SLF says the increasing changes and the potential consequences for natural hazards and infrastructure are a major challenge in many mountain regions.

The full report can be read here.

High altitude alpine structures, Switzerland. Image © PlanetSKI

The study follows a warning from the largest mountaineering club in Switzerland, the Swiss Alpine Club, that more than one third of its 153 mountain huts could become unstable in the future due to the thawing permafrost.

In addition, it says, 42 huts are endangered by landslides from permafrost zones.

The supply of water to mountain huts is also set to reduce.

Some 29 huts close to glaciers may lose the water supply from glaciers by 2030.

By 2050 a further 25 will lose access to water supplies.