Trends
Long-term change in mountain systems — from lake sediments recording past climate to today's retreating glaciers.
People and methodsFolgefonna
Centre for Mountains
in Transition
A research centre hosted by the University of Bergen, with partners at NORCE in Bergen and NMBU in Ås, studying how Scandinavian mountains, and the people who depend on them, respond to a rapidly changing climate.
Glaciers are retreating, snow is turning to rain and mountain ecosystems are shifting. We study the whole system across scales: from a square metre of tundra to the entire mountain chain, and from hourly weather to thousands of years of climate history.
CMT is an interdisciplinary research centre based at the University of Bergen, focused on the Scandinavian mountains. We connect field evidence with integrated models of mountain climate, environment and ecosystems.
Our goal is knowledge that matters on the ground: guiding management plans, supporting stakeholders and building resilience in mountain societies — in Norway and beyond.
Funded byTrond Mohn Research FoundationCMT is funded by the Trond Mohn Research Foundation (TMS) and hosted by the University of Bergen, with partners at NORCE and NMBU.
Four lenses on change
Our research programme is built around four interconnected themes, each looking at how climate reshapes water, snow, ice and biodiversity in the mountains.
Seasonality
Shifting seasons: shorter snow cover, earlier melt and changing timing of runoff and plant growth.
People and methodsExtremes
Floods, avalanches, droughts and storms — understanding the hazards that hit mountain communities hardest.
People and methodsResilience
How mountains are valued and managed — working with communities and stakeholders on plans for a safe future.
People and methodsFrom lake cores to neural networks
Six ways of looking at the same mountains. Together they connect the deep past, what is happening now, and what comes next.
Paleo reconstruction
Lake sediments and glacier deposits record thousands of years of climate. Cores from lakes like Bergsfjord show how glaciers grew and shrank long before measurements began.
Sensor networks
Weather stations, snow sensors and time-lapse cameras on Folgefonna stream data year-round, from the summit to the valleys.
Modelling
Regional climate, glacier and hydrology models link the processes together, from heavy precipitation to snowpack, runoff and floods, and project them into the future.
Biological sampling
Vegetation plots, resurveys and pollinator studies track how mountain plants and insects respond as snow and temperature change.
Remote sensing
Drones, aircraft and satellites map snow, ice and terrain. Repeat photogrammetry and LiDAR measure change to the centimetre.
Machine learning
Deep learning turns satellite and archive imagery into maps of snow depth, glaciers, glacial lakes and avalanches across whole regions.
Latest news
The glacier, right now
Our PhD students run a weather station on the summit of Folgefonna and a timelapse camera above Bondhusbreen. Both stream data to this page.
Folgefonna summit
—°CAir temp
—%Humidity
—m/sWind
—hPaPressure
—Surface
—Last rain
Connecting…
Drag across the chart to zoom, double-click to zoom out
The station went up on 1 May, but its data was only published online from mid-July, so the record starts there. Breaks are periods with no published data.
Bondhusbreen camera
Updated hourly in daylight. Drag inside the view to look around.
Melt season 2026
—surface lowering since the station went up on 1 May
The next 48 hours
MET Norway forecast · 1642 mObserved at the stationForecast0 °C
Measuring the ice cap from the air
Twice a year we fly the Folgefonna summit with survey drones and rebuild the surface in 3D. Comparing the flights shows how much snow fell over winter and how much ice melted away over summer.
Photogrammetry
A fixed-wing Wingtra drone photographs the summit in parallel lines, rebuilt into a centimetre-scale orthophoto and surface model.
LiDAR
Featureless spring snow is hard for cameras, so we add spring LiDAR flights and Kartverket's national LiDAR (Aug 2025).
Repeat flights
Snow depth = spring − previous autumnSurface change = autumn − previous autumn
- Autumn2 Oct 2024Photogrammetry
- Spring7 May 2025Photogrammetry + LiDAR
- Kartverket25 Aug 2025National LiDAR
- Autumn24 Sep 2025Photogrammetry
- Spring30 Apr 2026Photogrammetry + LiDAR
- Autumn2 Sep 2026Photogrammetry
Drag the slider through two years
Put any two surveys side by side with Compare, or pick a topic (snow depth, annual losses or total change) and drag the slider. Click anywhere to read the values, or open the story for a guided tour.
Where we work
From the Folgefonna ice cap and Finse to the lakes of Finnmark. Pick a site to fly there; the terrain is shown in 3D.
Map could not load.
Publications
Papers by CMT researchers since the centre started in 2025, updated every week. Highlighted names are CMT people: click one to see their profile.
From @mountaincentre
The people behind the data
Glaciologists, ecologists, meteorologists, hydrologists and social scientists from the University of Bergen, NORCE and NMBU.
Beyond Scandinavia
SnowAI
UiB · NVE · University of CanterburyAI for snow in a changing climate. Deep-learning models trained on satellite time series, snow pits, UAV surveys and an IoT sensor network deliver weekly 10 m maps of snow depth and snow water equivalent.
CO-INVENT
UiB · IIT Roorkee · JNUA collaborative study of cryo-climatology in the glaciated Himalaya — combining remote sensing, machine learning and process modelling to map glaciers, snow, permafrost and hazards, with student exchanges and summer schools.
NatuRA
UiB · University of the Free State · University of VendaSustainable use of natural resources in alpine and mountain grasslands under global change. NatuRA compares traditional and present-day management of mountain grasslands in Norway and South Africa, measures the effects of global change, and works with local communities on nature-based solutions for grazing and water use. Funded by the Research Council of Norway and South Africa's National Research Foundation.
More about NatuRA ↗Want to take a Master's with CMT?
Do your master's thesis with CMT: on the ice, in the lakes or among the alpine plants. These are some of the things we work on, and every project is shaped together with you.
Extreme precipitation
Grazing
Glacier velocity
Satellite remote sensing
Water isotopes
LiDAR
Open science
Machine learning
Blowing snow
Glaciers
Weather stations
Floods
Snow
Alpine plants
Climate models
Mountain communities
Lake sediments
Energy balance
Holocene
Radiocarbon dating
Drone surveys
Ice caps
Heathlands
Plant traits
Ecosystem services
Fieldwork
Warming experiments
Pollinators
Hydropower
Avalanches
Images and video: glacier crevasses: Benjamin Aubrey Robson; sediment cores: Susie Wood / Lakes380, CC BY-SA 4.0; Breiðamerkurjökull: NASA SVS, public domain; Haukeliseter 1969: Widerøes Flyveselskap, public domain; Niscemi landslide: Gianfrancodp, CC BY-SA 4.0; lake coring at Bergsfjord: CMT; global model: NASA SVS, public domain; Hardangervidda tundra: Sergey Ashmarin, CC BY-SA 3.0; bumblebee: Роман Рябенко, CC0; Bondhus glacier 1909: Alfred Heaton Cooper, public domain; Eqi glacier: Giles Laurent, CC BY-SA 4.0; Finse: Kokoon, CC BY-SA 3.0; reindeer: Edition Records / E2 Music, CC BY 3.0; summit station: Håvard Gjesdal; Vøringsfossen: Marius Arnesen, CC BY 3.0; Hardangerjøkulen 1910s: Léon Auguste, CC0.
Something here spark your interest? Look through our team for a supervisor whose research matches, and contact them directly.
Working in the mountains? Let's talk.
We collaborate with researchers, municipalities, hydropower, tourism and conservation partners. No positions are open right now — check back for future calls.
