The Italian study started from the analysis of the growth rings of the common juniper at high altitudes
From the study of juniper
We discovered that the common juniper, when found at high altitudes, grows horizontally very close to the ground and records the duration of the snow cover in its growth rings, explains Marco Carrer, forest ecologist at the University of Padua and first author of the study. In fact, its growing season, being a few tens of centimeters tall, strongly depends on how early it manages to emerge from the snow that covers it. However, the analysis of juniper growth rings was not enough to carry out an in-depth study. The collected data were then compared and integrated with others.
Never like this for 600 years
For the study of climate change it is necessary to have a broad temporal perspective, but information regarding the snowpack has only been collected for a few decades, explains Michele Brunetti, research manager of Cnr-Isac of Bologna and co-author of the article on Nature. By crossing the measurements of the growth rings of the juniper, which can live up to over 400 years, with a snowpack permanence model developed for the occasion, we were able to reconstruct the snow conditions over the last six centuries. This is the first time that such a long time horizon information has been obtained for this extremely important meteorological variable. And hence the surprising result: We understood that what we are experiencing had never occurred before, conclude the two researchers.
January 12, 2023 (change January 12, 2023 | 5:09 pm)
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