Heterogeneous changes of soil microclimate in high mountains and glacier forelands

Abstract Landscapes nearby glaciers are disproportionally affected by climate change, still we lack the information on microclimate variation that is required to understand impacts of climate change on these ecosystems and their biodiversity. Here we use near-subsurface soil temperatures in 175 stations from polar, equatorial and alpine glacier forelands to reconstruct temperatures at high resolution, assess spatial differences in microclimate change from 2001 to 2020, and estimate whether microclimate heterogeneity might buffer the severity of warming impacts on organisms. Temporal changes in microclimate are tightly linked to broad-scale trends, but the rate of global warming showed spatial heterogeneity, with faster warming nearby glaciers and during the warm season, and an extension of the snow-free season. Still, the fine-scale spatial variability of microclimate is one-to-ten times larger than the temporal change experienced, indicating the potential for microclimate to buffer climate change, possibly allowing organism to withstand, at least temporarily, the effects of warming.