2023 was the hottest ever seen by the World Meteorological Organization since temperature records began, with multiple major climate catastrophes, particularly in France. With droughts and water shortages in the South of the country, flooding of biblical proportions in the North and landslides in the Alps, we are increasingly seeing the climate-change phenomena scientists have been predicting and fearing for decades. In this article, Bernard Francou focuses on the specific case of the Alps.
Francou, a specialist in high mountain regions and a glaciologist, offers a detailed, concrete analysis of the impact of climate change on this region, which is crucial in hydrological terms. He cites a wealth of scientific findings on temperature, glacier volume, snow levels, rainfall figures etc., identifying the long-term trends in that data, which very clearly show an (accelerating) decline in snow cover and glacier size. He also points out how this trend could develop in scenarios in which planetary temperatures increase, as well as the knock-on effects not only for the Alpine region, but also for the river basins downstream from the Alps and for France’s hydrology in general.
