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Impact of climate variability on Alpine glaciers in northwestern Italy

  1. Sandro Calmanti1,
  2. Luigi Motta2,
  3. Marco Turco3,
  4. Antonello Provenzale4,*

Article first published online: 22 MAR 2007

DOI: 10.1002/joc.1500

Issue

International Journal of Climatology

International Journal of Climatology

Volume 27, Issue 15, pages 2041–2053, December 2007

Additional Information

How to Cite

Calmanti, S., Motta, L., Turco, M. and Provenzale, A. (2007), Impact of climate variability on Alpine glaciers in northwestern Italy. Int. J. Climatol., 27: 2041–2053. doi: 10.1002/joc.1500

Author Information

  1. 1

    ENEA-CLIM Casaccia, Roma, Italy

  2. 2

    Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università di Torino, Italy

  3. 3

    ARPA Piemonte, Torino, Italy

  4. 4

    ISAC-CNR, Torino and CIMA, Savona, Italy

*ISAC-CNR, Torino, Corso Fiume 4, I-10133 Torino, Italy.

Publication History

  1. Issue published online: 15 NOV 2007
  2. Article first published online: 22 MAR 2007
  3. Manuscript Accepted: 4 JAN 2007
  4. Manuscript Revised: 5 DEC 2006
  5. Manuscript Received: 24 APR 2006

Funded by

  • ARPA–Piemonte

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Keywords:

  • climate variability at regional scales;
  • impact of climate change;
  • hydrologic cycle in Alpine areas;
  • glacier dynamics

Abstract

We analyzed glacier snout fluctuation data in Piedmont and Val d'Aosta (Italy) and studied the impact of climate variability on valley glaciers in the western Italian Alps. The study period covered about 70 years in the 20th century; we focused on the last 50 years where a large number of temperature and precipitation time series are available. Superposed onto a general recession trend, we detected strong oscillations on shorter time scales and we showed that they are significantly correlated with fluctuations in winter precipitation rates and average summer temperatures. On the basis of these results, we constructed a simple lagged-linear empirical stochastic model that explained upto 66% of the variance of the snout fluctuation data. The model produces reliable out-of-sample predictions of the impact of climate variability on the glaciers of the western Alps and it can be used to estimate the average response of Alpine glaciers to different scenarios of climate change, provided the morphology of the individual glaciers does not change completely. Copyright © 2007 Royal Meteorological Society

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