The global heating has hit the Mountains, and we can hear about it. When being in the mountain environment the change can not be missed. The world is fighting for the 1,5 temperature target, in the Swedish mountains the target is already missed. In the winter season it is already three degrees more that for forty years ago. During millions of year the plants and animals have adopted, but were the Mountains ends there is no way left. One of the first observation is that after the millennium there has been very few lemming years. The result is that the Barn owl (sv. Fjällugglan) seldom or not breeds.

The small lemmings is the Swedish mountains engine. So how come this? Well, the easiest explanation will be the snow. The snow does not behaves as before, the winter has overall became warmer and with recurring rain. The rain frees and be laying as a crust over the ground. The lemmings use the snow for building passages, and the snow also protect them from cold and predator’s. When there is snow they can use the ”subnival room” to raise several litters in one winter. So when the mountains engine stops, all the others become affected. The barn owl, peregrine falcon the arctic fox will be direct affected but also other birds and due to the fact that predators will hunt them instead of the lemmings. The extreme weather has also been a factor you must count with. In the summer 2018 it was so hot in the mountains as it was hard to find water in same areas. In 2020 the snow layer was 5 meter at Riksgränsen i June. with reindeer calves not surviving, the peregrine falcons missed nesting as a result.

It takes several years for the ice ranunculus to gather enough energy to be able to bloom. But now that the climate is getting warmer, it has nowhere to go. It cannot move higher up. The mountain runs out and the ice ranuncle is out-competed by other plants.

So we really have to take a common responsible for our environment…

Mando Diao – Christmas Could Have Been Good

See ya tomorrow..