<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/28/swiss-glaciers-lose-tenth-volume-in-two-years-climate-crisis>
"Swiss glaciers have lost 10% of their volume in just two years, a report has
found.
Scientists have said climate breakdown caused by the burning of fossil fuels is
the cause of unusually hot summers and winters with very low snow volume, which
have caused the accelerating melts. The volume lost during the hot summers of
2022 and 2023 is the same as that lost between 1960 and 1990.
The analysis by the Swiss Academy of Sciences found 4% of Switzerland’s total
glacier volume vanished this year, the second-biggest annual decline on record.
The largest decline was in 2022, when there was a 6% drop, the biggest thaw
since measurements began.
Experts have stopped measuring the ice on some glaciers as there is essentially
none left. Glacier Monitoring in Switzerland (Glamos), which monitors 176
glaciers, recently halted measurements at the St Annafirn glacier in the
central Swiss canton of Uri since it had mostly melted.
Matthias Huss, the head of Glamos, said: “We just had some dead ice left. It’s
a combination of climate change that makes such extreme events more likely, and
the very bad combination of meteorological extremes. If we continue at this
rate … we will see every year such bad years.”
He said small glaciers were disappearing because of the rate of ice loss. In
order to stop Switzerland losing its ice, emissions needed to be halted, he
said, but added that even if the world managed to keep warming to 1.5C above
preindustrial levels, only a third of glacier volume in Switzerland was
forecast to remain.
This meant, he said, that “all the small glaciers will be gone anyway, and the
big glaciers will be much smaller”. But he stressed that at least “there will
be some ice in the highest regions of the Alps and some glaciers that we can
show to our grandchildren”."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
