In Austria, snow has been lying on the ground for shorter and shorter periods over the past 60 years. A new study predicts that the snow season will continue to shorten — and how much depends on future climate policy.

On average, Austria's meadows and slopes are now snow-covered for 40 days less per year than in 1961 — that's 60 years ago. This is the finding of an analysis of nationwide snow measurements taken over recent decades. "There are individual stations that show no significant trend, but there are no stations anywhere showing increasing snow depths," said Andreas Gobiet, head of the research project at the Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics (ZAMG).

Overall, due to temperatures that are too high, snowfall in autumn is arriving later and later, or the snow simply isn't settling. In spring, the snow cover melts away more quickly. "This shortening of the season is happening at all elevations. Not equally, of course, but all elevations are affected."

Lower elevations particularly affected

The snow season has shortened most dramatically below an altitude of 1,500 metres. But even in higher mountain regions, climate warming has pushed winter temperatures up by an average of two degrees Celsius. This trend will continue unstoppably over the next 30 years, as analyses by the climate researcher and his colleagues show. "Up to around 2050, we'll definitely have to reckon with another degree of warming. And that means roughly another three to four weeks of shortening of the snow season," Gobiet told science.ORF.at.