IMIS Phenology Data Since 1998

Long-term phenological data in alpine regions are often limited to a few locations and thus, little is known about climate-change induced plant phenological shifts above the treeline. Because plant growth initiation in seasonally snow-covered regions is largely driven by snowmelt timing and local temperature, it is essential to simultaneously track phenological shifts, snowmelt, and near-ground temperatures. In this study, we make use of ultrasonic snow height sensors installed at climate stations in the Swiss Alps to reveal phenological advance of grassland ecosystems and relate them to climatic changes over 25 years (1998 – 2023). When snow is absent, these snow height sensors additionally provide information on plant growth at a uniquely fine temporal scale. Daily temperatures and snow- / plant height values, annual phenological- and melt-out dates were derived from IMIS climate station data (doi.org/10.16904/envidat.406). We observed an advance of green-up by -2.4 days/decade coinciding with strong warming of up to +0.8°C/decade. Although the timing of melt-out has not changed significantly over the study period in this focal region, phenological responses to early melt-out years varied due to differing influences of photoperiodic and thermal constraints, which were not equally important across elevations and communities. Phenological shifts of alpine grasslands are thus likely to become even more pronounced if melt-out timing advances in the future as predicted.

This repository relates to the publication Zehnder et al. (2025). Snow height sensors reveal phenological advance in alpine grasslands. Global Change Biology. accepted. The model data and code that support our findings are deposited in this repository.

Funding Information:

This work was supported by:
  • WSL Extremes 2021-2025

Related Datasets

IMIS measuring network: doi.org/10.16904/envidat.406

Related Publications

Svoboda J., Ruesch M., Liechti D., Jones C., Volpi M., Zehnder M., Schweizer J. (2025) Towards deep-learning solutions for classification of automated snow height measurements (CleanSnow v1.0.2). Geosci. Model Dev. 18(5), 1829-1849. doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-1829-2025

Citation:

Zehnder, Michael; Pfund, Beat; Svoboda, Jan; Marty, Christoph; Vitasse, Yann; Alexander, Jake; Hille Ris Lambers, Janneke; Rixen, Christian (2025). IMIS Phenology Data Since 1998. EnviDat. doi:10.16904/envidat.635.

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Data and Resources

Metadata

Field Values
DOI 10.16904/envidat.635
Publication State Published
Authors
  • Email: michael.zehnderfoo(at)slf.ch Given Name: Michael Family Name: Zehnder Affiliation: WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF DataCRediT: Curation, Collection, Publication, Validation, Supervision
  • Email: bpfundfoo(at)ethz.ch Given Name: Beat Family Name: Pfund Affiliation: WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF, Flüelastr. 11, 7260 Davos Dorf DataCRediT: Curation, Collection, Validation, Publication
  • Email: jan.svobodafoo(at)slf.ch Given Name: Jan Family Name: Svoboda Affiliation: WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF DataCRediT: Curation, Collection, Validation, Publication
  • Email: martyfoo(at)slf.ch ORCID: 0000-0002-0398-6253 Given Name: Christoph Family Name: Marty Affiliation: WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF DataCRediT: Supervision, Curation, Collection, Publication, Validation
  • Email: yann.vitassefoo(at)wsl.ch ORCID: 0000-0002-7454-505X Given Name: Yann Family Name: Vitasse Affiliation: WSL DataCRediT: Curation, Collection, Validation, Publication
  • Email: jake.alexanderfoo(at)usys.ethz.ch ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2226-7913 Given Name: Jake Family Name: Alexander Affiliation: Institute of Integrative Biology, ETH Zurich, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland DataCRediT: Supervision, Publication
  • Email: Janneke.hillerislambersfoo(at)usys.ethz.ch Given Name: Janneke Family Name: Hille Ris Lambers Affiliation: Institute of Integrative Biology, ETH Zurich, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland DataCRediT: Supervision, Publication
  • Email: rixenfoo(at)slf.ch ORCID: 0000-0002-2486-9988 Given Name: Christian Family Name: Rixen Affiliation: WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF DataCRediT: Supervision, Curation, Collection, Validation, Publication
Contact Person Given Name: Michael Family Name: Zehnder Email: michael.zehnderfoo(at)slf.ch
Subtitles
Publication Publisher: EnviDat Year: 2025
Dates
  • Type: Created Date: 2022-04-01 End Date: 2025-04-07
  • Type: Collected Date: 1998-01-01 End Date: 2023-03-12
Version 1.0
Type dataset
General Type Dataset
Language English
Location Switzerland
Content License Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY 4.0)    [Open Data]
Last Updated April 9, 2025, 14:14 (UTC)
Created April 7, 2025, 08:06 (UTC)