“…Several studies have been undertaken on this topic in European mountains (Haeberli, 1973;Grüber and Hoelzle, 2001;Luetschg et al, 2008;Farbrot et al, 2011Farbrot et al, , 2013Hasler et al, 2011;Pogliotti, 2011;Gisnås et al, 2014;Ardelean et al, 2015;Magnin et al, 2016;Beniston et al, 2017), in Japan (Ishikawa, 2003;Ishikawa and Hirakawa, 2000), in the Canadian Rocky Mountains (Harris, 1981;Lewkowicz and Ednie, Lewkowicz et al, 2012;Bonnaventure et al, 2012;Hasler et al, 2015), and most recently in the Andes (Apaloo et al 2012). The snow cover acts as a buffer layer controlling heat loss at the ground interface.…”