Climate warming creates ‘record summer’ for Swiss glaciers | Environment

Glaciologists from the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zurich, a technology university in Zurich, have just been re-atracting the country’s glaciers under the direction of Matthias Huss, the top man of the glacier observatory. They examined twenty glaciers to determine the extent of the ice. The full report will be released in the fall, but the response to global warming is already clear, it says.

“In the years 2011, 2015, 2018 or even 2019, the melting was already very significant. 2022 is truly exceptional and beats all records,” said Huss. “Extreme and disturbing” findings, it sounds. At the beginning of this month he went to the Griesgletscher in the western alpine canton of Valais (Valais). At the center of the glaciers, the rock base was visible at the bottom of a crevasse, he explains. The melting glacier will soon be cut in half, it sounds.

The team goes up the twenty glaciers twice a year. In April, for example, they determine the quality of the snow layer that covers the glaciers. It is important because it protects and nourishes the glacier during the summer. It was already clear then that it was going to be a difficult summer – and on the Gries the snow layer at an altitude of 3,000 meters had already completely melted in July and the ice mass was already decreasing. In September, the glaciologists return to study the impact of the summer. For example, in September the glacier in question had decreased by 4 meters in thickness at the highest parts, a record. “Exceptional: this is two to three times the loss of previous years.”

Elsewhere, too, the evolution was alarming. For example, the Findel near Zermatt, also in Wallis, has lost more than 2 meters at an altitude of 3,400 meters. Until now there was always enough snow there to get through the summer. The Corvatsch in the eastern canton of Graubünden has melted to such an extent that it could not be measured.

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