Swiss glaciers have melted more in the past two years than between 1960 and 1990 due to extreme weather conditions exacerbated by climate change, according to a study published Thursday.
The low snowfall in winter and the very high temperatures in summer will cost these masterpieces of nature, which are in danger between 2022 and 2023, 10% of their volume, notes the group of experts in charge of cryosphere research at the Swiss Academy of Natural Sciences is.
Their conclusion is clear: “The Swiss glaciers are melting faster and faster.”
The extreme years follow each other and are similar: after a volume loss of 6% in the record year 2022, Swiss glaciers have melted by a further 4% this year. This is the second largest decline since measurements began.
“It is a combination of the very bad sequence of weather extremes and climate change” that makes these extremes more likely, Matthias Huss, who leads the Swiss glaciological network (Glamos), tells AFP.
“If we continue like we have in recent years – everything goes even faster – every year will be a bad year,” he emphasizes.
“And we have experienced such strong climate changes in recent years that one can easily imagine this country without glaciers,” the scientist acknowledges, but still emphasizes the crucial step of “stabilizing the climate” by reducing CO2 emissions Zero It could be possible to preserve “a third of the ice created in Switzerland” as quickly as possible.
That means “all the small glaciers will be gone and the big glaciers will be much smaller, but there will still be some ice in the higher regions of the Alps and a few glaciers that we can show our grandchildren,” hopes Mr. Huss .
Water tower
The melting affected the entire Alpine country, which is considered Europe’s water tower thanks to its 1,400 glaciers that feed countless lakes, rivers and streams.
In the south and east of Switzerland, the glaciers have melted almost as much as in the record year of 2022. In the south of Valais (south) and in the Engadine (east), ice melting of several meters was measured over 3200 meters, while the glaciers melted a few years ago were still in equilibrium at this height.
This summer’s high temperatures in Switzerland have pushed the zero-degree limit – or isotherm – to record highs of 5298m, an altitude higher than the country’s highest point, Pointe Dufour (4636m).
In the winter of 2022/23, very little snow fell on both sides of the Alps and it was very warm. This means there was significantly less snow than usual in all ski areas.
Snowy coat
Above 1000 meters above sea level, measured snow depths in the first half of February were generally slightly higher than in the low-snow winters of 1964, 1990 or 2007. However, snowmelt reached new records in the second half of February and snow depths were only about 30% of the multi-year average .
Even above 2000 meters, more than half of the automatic stations with measurement series of at least 25 years showed new minimum records.
The dry and very warm month of June caused the snow cover to melt 2 to 4 weeks earlier than usual.
Conditions that prevented glaciers from regenerating.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released last year, melting ice and snow is one of the top ten threats from global warming.
According to another study published in January in the journal Science, half of the world’s glaciers are doomed to disappear by the end of the century if temperature rises are limited to 1.5°C compared to pre-industrial times most ambitious goal of the Paris Climate Agreement.