The Alps are getting greener — but that's not a good thing

The European Alps are an iconic, crescent-shaped mountain range associated with images of wintry peaks and snow-covered villages.

The European Alps are an iconic, crescent-shaped mountain range associated with images of wintry peaks and snow-covered villages. But new research confirms a worrying trend about the winter-sports destination: The Alps are turning from white to green. 

In a study published Thursday in the journal Science, researchers report that a process called “greening” is occurring over large swaths of the Alps. While this term is sometimes used to refer to making a space more environmentally friendly, in this case, it refers to an increase in plant growth and spread which can accelerate climate change. 

Greening can potentially cause a few positive consequences, but the negative consequences outweigh these effects, said Sabine Rumpf, the study’s first author and a professor at the University of Basel in Switzerland. 

This phenomenon is occurring across 77 percent of the European Alps above the tree line — the edge of alpine habitats where trees stop growing. An earlier estimate reported this was happening in just 56 percent of the region. 

Rumpf and her colleagues also found that snow cover has declined significantly in 10 percent of the Alps. These figures are based on an analysis of 38 years of data. The scientists evaluated information captured by the Landsat Missions, a group of eight Earth-observing satellites that use remote sensors to collect data. Instead of looking at images, the team used this data to calculate the spread of snow cover and vegetation productivity. 

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/alps-are-getting-greener-not-good-thing-rcna31251

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