From the way 45-year-old Swiss glaciologist Andreas Linsbauer leaps over ice crevices, you’d never guess he’s carrying 10 kg of metal equipment needed to map the decline of Switzerland’s glaciers.
He normally travels this way on the massive Morteratsch glacier in the last days of September, the end of the thaw season in the Alps. But exceptionally high melts this year had brought him to this 15 square kilometer ice amphitheater two months earlier for emergency maintenance work.
The measuring posts he uses to track changes in depth are at risk of being completely dislodged as the ice melts, and he has to drill new holes.
Glaciers in the Alps are on track to experience the biggest loss in mass in at least 60 years on record, according to data shared exclusively with Reuters. By looking at the difference between how much snow has fallen in the winter and how much ice has melted in the summer, scientists can measure how much a glacier has shrunk in any given year.
Since last winter, which saw relatively little snowfall, the Alps have experienced two major summer heat waves — including one in July, marked by temperatures approaching 30 degrees Celsius in the Swiss mountain village of Zermatt.
During this heat wave, the altitude at which the water froze was measured at a record high of 5,184 meters compared to the normal summer level of between 3,000 and 3,500 meters.
“It’s very obvious this is an extreme season,” Linsbauer said, shouting over the roar of meltwater as he checked the height of a pole jutting out of the ice.
melting mountain
Most of the world’s glaciers — remnants of the last ice age — are retreating due to climate change. But those in the European Alps are especially vulnerable because they are smaller and have relatively little ice cover. Meanwhile, temperatures in the Alps are rising by about 0.3 degrees Celsius per decade — roughly twice as fast as the global average.
If greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, glaciers in the Alps are expected to lose more than 80% of their current mass by 2100. Many will disappear regardless of what action is taken against emissions at this point, thanks to global warming generated by emissions. past years, according to a 2019 report by the United Nations (UN) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Morteratsch has already changed a lot from the glacier drawn on tourist maps of the region. The long tongue reaching the bottom of the valley has shrunk by about three kilometers, while the depth of the snow and ice floes has decreased by up to 200 meters. The parallel Pers glacier flowed into it until 2017, but has now receded so far that an ever-increasing strip of sand sits between them.
This year’s harsh situation raises concerns that glaciers in the Alps could disappear sooner than expected. With more years like 2022, that could happen, said Matthias Huss, who leads Glacier Monitoring Switzerland (Glamos).
“We’re seeing expected model results a few decades into the future happening right now,” Huss said. “I didn’t expect to see such an extreme year so early in this century.”
