A Brief History of Seasonal Snowfall at Lautaret

Conference Commercialization, Research, Scientific and Technical Culture
August 31, 2026Villar-d'Arène - Lautaret Garden
Lecture: A Brief History of Seasonal Snowfall at Lautaret
From 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. With Philippe Choler, Research Director at the Alpine Ecology Laboratory. In our mountains, seasonal snow cover determines plant distribution, wildlife activity, the quantity and quality of water resources, carbon storage in high-altitude soils, reservoir levels, forage resources in mountain pastures, tourism activity...

No one is able to determine exactly what the seasonal snowpack levels were in our mountains before the 1970s and 1980s. Unlike today, there were no regular satellite-based Earth observation programs at that time. As for climate models that attempt to reconstruct past snow cover, they remain highly imprecise and fraught with significant uncertainties due to a lack of observations. The lecture will illustrate how careful observation of late-winter landscapes allows us to piece together a long history (dating back to the19th century) of snow cover. It will also show that the imprints left by the heavy snowfalls of the past are still clearly visible in today’s landscapes.

 

Philippe Choler, LECA

Philippe Choler is a research director at the Alpine Ecology Laboratory (UGA/USMB/CNRS). For over 30 years, he has been studying the functioning and dynamics of alpine pastures by combining various approaches (biodiversity, climatology, socio-ecology, environmental history). Watch the video on the greening of Alpine peaks produced by the Grenoble Observatory of Universe Sciences, a federation to which The jardin du Lautaret the Alpine Ecology Laboratory belong. 
Published on April 3, 2026
Updated on April 3, 2026