Forecasts of future forest change are governed by ecosystem sensitivity to climate change, but ecosystem model projections are under‐constrained by data at multidecadal and longer timescales. Here, we quantify ecosystem sensitivity to centennial‐scale hydroclimate variability, by comparing dendroclimatic and pollen‐inferred reconstructions of drought, forest composition and biomass for the last millennium with five ecosystem m...

The European Alps are very sensitive and vulnerable to climate change. Recent improvements in Alpine glacier length records and climate reconstructions from annually laminated sediments of Alpine Lake Silvaplana give the opportunity to investigate the relationship between these two data sets of Alpine climate. Two different time frames are considered: the last 500–1000 years as well as the last 7400 years. First, we found good...

During the hot summer of 2003, reduction of an ice field in the Swiss Alps (Schnidejoch) uncovered spectacular archaeological hunting gear, fur, leather and woollen clothing and tools from four distinct windows of time: Neolithic Age (4900 to 4450 cal. yr BP), early Bronze Age (4100–3650 cal. yr BP), Roman Age (1st–3rd century AD), and Medieval times (8–9th century AD and 14–15th century AD). Transalpine routes connecting nort...