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Updated: Jun 9, 2025

Using Generative Art to Convey Past and Future Climate Transitions
Published on: March 31, 2023
A supply-limited torrent that does not feel the heat of climate change
Jiazhi Qie1, Adrien Favillier2,3, Frédéric Liébault4
1Climatic Change Impacts and Risks in the Anthropocene (C-CIA), Institute for Environmental Sciences, University of Geneva, 66 Boulevard Carl Vogt, CH-1205, Geneva, Switzerland. jiazhi.qie@etu.unige.ch.
Abstract:
Debris-flow activity in the Alps is anticipated to undergo pronounced changes in response to a warming climate. Yet, a fundamental challenge in comprehensively assessing changes in process activity is the systematic lack of long-term observational debris-flow records. Here, we reconstruct the longest, continuous time series (1626-2020) of debris flows at Multetta, a supply-limited torrential system in the Eastern Swiss Alps. Relying on growth-ring records of trees that were damaged by debris flows, we do not detect significant changes in the frequency or magnitude over time. This seeming absence of a direct climatic influence on debris-flow initiation aligns with the regular distribution of repose time patterns, indicating a dependence of local process activity on sediment discharge and recharge. This stark difference in process behavior between our supply-limited site and transport-limited catchments has implications for assessing torrential hazard and risk mitigation in a context of global warming.
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