The latest study by the CSIC’s Pyrenees Limnological Observatory, published in ‘Nature Communications’, points to the first effects of climate change on high mountain lakes in the Pyrenees, at an altitude of between 2,000 and 3,000 metres.

The incidence of human impact and climate change has been recognized in the chemical composition, where the arrival of dust from the Sahara has been recorded due to transformations in atmospheric circulation movements. This has led to an increase in the amounts of phosphorus deposited in the lakes, while at the same time there has been a growth of phytoplankton, a phenomenon that abruptly ends with the excess nitrogen, which means a biogeochemical imbalance in these areas and a eutrophication of the system.