The Swiss glaciers melted faster than usual in 2024 as a scorching summer thawed through an abundance of snowfall, the monitoring organization GLAMOS reported on Tuesday.
Earlier this year, glaciologists hailed the record-breaking winter and spring snowfall in the Alps. They expected it to signal an end to years of significant declines or even a reversal of losses.
In August, scientists recorded unprecedented ice losses across the nation due to average temperatures just a few degrees above freezing. These losses included the 3,571-meter-high Jungfraujoch station perched atop the Aletsch Glacier.
According to GLAMOS, the volume loss of Swiss glaciers this year was 2.5% overall, higher than the average for the previous ten years.
“It is worrying to me that despite the perfect year we actually had for glaciers, with the snow-rich winter and the rather cool and rainy spring, it was still not enough,” stated Matthias Huss, Director of GLAMOS.
“If the trend continues that we have seen in this year, this will be a disaster for Swiss glaciers,” he stated.
Dust from the Sahara was one of the elements, according to the report, that accelerated the losses this year. This reduces the capacity of ice sheets to reflect sunlight back into the sky, giving them a brown or rose color.
Huss shared images of muddy streams running through ice sheets so thin that gravel and rocks protruded on social media during recent data gathering excursions.
He said to Reuters earlier this month, while surveying the ice on the Pers Glacier in eastern Switzerland, “There is really a relation you build up with the site, with the ice, and it hurts a bit to see how the rocks are simply taking over.”
Due to climate change, temperatures in Switzerland are rising by over double the average rate of the world, resulting in the melting of more than half of the Alps’ glaciers.
The glacial hills separating the two nations have melted, reshaping the watersheds that define the border. As a result, the Swiss government approved a revision of parts of its border with Italy last week.
By 2100, the glaciers in the Alps are predicted to have lost more than 80% of their present mass if greenhouse gas emissions keep rising.
Switzerland was found to be failing to take sufficient action to halt the effects of climate change earlier this year by the highest human rights court in Europe. This is denied by the Swiss government.
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