Switzerland’s BIG THAW
Swiss glaciers have lost 10% of ice volume in two years, as much as occured in the thirty years between 1960 and 1990 This year, 4% of total glacier volume has disappeared already, with a 6% drop in 2022 — the biggest thaw since measurements began.
A Swiss Academy of Sciences panel is reporting a dramatic acceleration of glacier melt in the Alpine country, which has lost 10 per cent of its ice volume in just two years after high summer heat and low snow volumes in winter.
Switzerland — home to the most glaciers of any country in Europe — has seen 4 per cent of its total glacier volume disappear in 2023, the second-biggest decline in a single year on top of a 6 per cent drop in 2022, the biggest thaw since measurements began, the academy’s commission for cryosphere observation said.
Experts at the Glamos glacier monitoring centre have been on the lookout for a possible extreme melt this year amid warning signs about the country’s estimated 1400 glaciers — a number that is now dwindling.
“The acceleration is dramatic, with as much ice being lost in only two years as was the case between 1960 and 1990,” the academy said. “The two extreme consecutive years have led to glacier tongues collapsing and the disappearance of many smaller glaciers.”
The team said the “massive ice loss” stemmed from a winter with low volumes of snow — which falls on top of glaciers and protects them from exposure to direct sunlight — and high summer temperatures.
All of Switzerland — where the Alps cut a swath through most of the southern and central parts of the country — was affected, though glaciers in the southern and eastern regions melted almost as fast as in 2022’s record thaw.
The average loss of ice thickness was up to 3m in places. Snow depths measured in the first half of February were generally higher than in the winters of 1964, 1990 or 2007, which were also characterised by low snowfalls, the team said.
But snow levels sank to a new record low in the second half of the month of February, reaching only about 30 per cent of the long-term average.
Swiss meteorologists reported in August the zero-degree Celsius level, the altitude where water freezes, had risen to its highest level ever recorded, at nearly 5300m, which means all the Swiss Alpine peaks faced temperatures above freezing.