If we want to know how climate change will affect the Pyrenees, you should not look at heat or level. You have to study the caves

Sometimes we have already talked about the threat that climate change supposes for the Pyrenees, for their ecological balance and for one of the key elements in the economy of the region, skiing. The mountainous regions are vulnerable areas in the face of changes in the weather, but to discover how we do not have to look at their snow, but in their stones.

16,500 years. A new study He has studied The evolution of temperatures in the surroundings of the Pyrenees during the last 16,500 years. The study allows us to establish a correspondence between the evolution of temperatures on this natural border of the Iberian Peninsula and the evolution of the climate in other regions of the world.

Almost seven degrees. One of the details emphasized by the study responsible for the study is a sharp change in the temperature of the region registered about 14,600 years: an increase of about 6.7º Celsius (with a margin of error of about 2.8º) in the temperature of the mountainous environment.

This increase in temperatures corresponds to a change in the climate of the northern hemisphere that occurred during the same era and has a counterpoint: a decrease of more than six degrees occurred almost two millennia later, about 12,800 years ago, during the event known as Younger Dryastowards the end of the last glacier period.

This increase in temperatures corresponds to a change in the climate of the northern hemisphere that occurred during the same era and has a counterpoint: a decrease of more than six degrees that occurred almost two millennia later, about 12,800 years ago, during the event known as Younger Dryas, towards the end of the last glacier period.

Analyzing stalagmites. The study was conducted by applying A new technique It allows to extract new climatic data from the incursions of water trapped in stalagmites, the mineral deposits that are formed in numerous tests, similar to the stalactites but whose growth occurs from the bottom up. The analysis was carried out in two caves of Ostolo and Mendukilo, in the north of Navarra.

According to The team stands out Responsible for the study, the new analysis allows us to “not only identify the qualitative temperature changes of the last 16,500 years, but also to offer quantitative numbers of these variations with high chronological precision.”

The details of the study have been published In an article In the magazine Climate of the past.

Learn for the future. The new study is proof that our environment responds “quickly and synchronized” to changes in the global climate and also does so in relatively short time scales. This can help us to prevent the local impacts of future changes in the weather with greater precision, something of unique importance in an environment already vulnerable to these alterations.

“Know how the climate in the past It helps us to better understand what can happen in the future in the face of similar disturbances. So that the future predictions of the climatic models are as robust as possible need data from the past to understand how the climate has worked in the face of phenomena such as the thermhaline circulation stop or previous increases in CO2 ”, stood out in a press release Ana Moreno, co -author of the study.

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