Glaciers are now melting at a record pace in several countries around the world, according to statistics collected by the Reuters news agency. Researchers and local residents are very worried about the situation.
The ice cover of the Alps is now melting at a record speed and the ice is disappearing at an unprecedented rate during the entire 60-year history of measurements, news agency Reuters reports.
Reuters has collected statistics, according to which the ice is now melting at a record pace in various parts of the world.
Scientists measure how much ice is lost during the winter season and how much during the summer season and compare it with the measurement results of previous years.
Last winter, it snowed relatively little in the Alps, and since then the snow cover of the mountains has been tested by two early summer heat waves. In July, the temperature in the Swiss village of Zermatt rose close to thirty degrees.
This summer’s heat has also raised the freezing point of water to a record high. While water usually freezes in the summer at an altitude of around 3,000–3,500 meters, it has now remained melted up to 5,184 meters. The point is higher than the highest peak of the Alps, Mont Blanc, which is located at an altitude of about 4,800 meters.
– It is clear that an extreme period is going on, the Swiss glaciologist Andreas Linsbauer states in an interview with Reuters.
Usually he heads to the 15 square kilometer Alpine Morteratsch glacier in late September after the summer thaw, but this year due to the rapid melting of the ice, he has already arrived in July to do urgent renovation work.
Glaciers are destroyed
Most of the world’s mountain glaciers are left over from the last ice age. According to experts, the glaciers are now melting due to climate change.
The glaciers located in the Alpine mountains in Europe are particularly vulnerable, as they are smaller in size and have relatively little ice surface. At the same time, the temperature in the Alps has risen by 0.3 degrees Celsius in a decade, which is twice the world average, according to statistics obtained by Reuters.
If greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase, 80 percent of the Alpine ice cover is expected to disappear by the year 2100. of the year of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2019 report (you switch to another service) according to the report, a large part of the ice will disappear even if climate action is taken now, because the emissions so far have already been so large.
Located in the Alps, the Morteratschi glacier now looks different from how it is depicted on the tourist maps of the area. Its long tongue, which once extended deep down into the valley, has shrunk by three kilometers over the years.
At the same time, the snow and ice cover has thinned to two hundred meters. Similarly, the Pers glacier still reached it in 2017, but has now retreated so much that there is an expanding strip of sand between the glaciers.
This year’s rapidly deteriorating situation is causing concern among researchers, as it could mean that the snow cover of the Alps could disappear much earlier than expected.
– If there are more years like this, it can happen, he says in an interview with Reuters Matthias Husswho heads GLAMOS, a community specialized in observing glaciers in Switzerland.
Researchers say that the Alps are already experiencing a situation that was only expected in tens of years.
– I did not expect to see such an extreme year so early in this century, Huss says.
Glaciers are also melting elsewhere
Glaciologists from Austria, France and Italy interviewed by Reuters confirmed that glaciers are now melting at a record-breaking rate.
The annual snowfall both replaces the melted ice and protects the Glaciers from melting, as the white surface reflects sunlight away and thus slows down the melting. A glacier soiled by dust or pollution melts correspondingly faster.
For example, last winter only 1.3 meters of snow fell on the Grand Etret glacier in northwestern Italy. It is two meters less than the annual twenty-year average until 2020.
The statistics show that the Morteratschi glacier is now losing five centimeters a day and its condition is already worse than normal at the end of the summer season.
Melting glaciers destroy habitats
Melting glaciers have already taken their toll. Earlier this month, a glacier collapse in Italy’s Marmolada region killed 11 people.
A few days later, a melting glacier in the eastern part of Kyrgyzstan triggered a huge avalanche, sending ice and rocks tumbling towards passing travelers.
The Swiss are also concerned that the melting of the ice will adversely affect the country’s economy. Some ski resorts have started covering the glaciers with white sheets to prevent them from melting.