Mother Nature (WRATH)

[BOREALIS]

Exclusive: Glaciers vanishing at record rate in Alps following heatwaves

July 26, 2022 1:20 AM CDT
Last Updated 17 hours ago
By Emma Farge and Gloria Dickie

MORTERATSCH GLACIER, Switzerland, July 26 (Reuters) - From the way 45-year-old Swiss glaciologist Andreas Linsbauer bounds over icy crevasses, you would never guess he was carrying 10 kg of steel equipment needed to chart the decline of Switzerland's glaciers.

Normally, he heads down this path on the massive Morteratsch Glacier in late September, the end of the summer melt season in the Alps. But exceptionally high ice loss this year has brought him to this 15-square-kilometer (5.8-square-mile) amphitheatre of ice two months early for emergency maintenance work.

The measuring poles he uses to track changes in the depth of the pack are at risk of dislodging entirely as the ice melts away and he needs to drill new holes. (https://tmsnrt.rs/3RXrTb7)

The Alps' glaciers are on track for their highest mass losses in at least 60 years of record keeping, data shared exclusively with Reuters shows. By looking at the difference in how much snow fell in winter, and how much ice melts in the summer, scientists can measure how much a glacier has shrunk in any given year.

Scientists scramble to harvest ice cores as glaciers melt
https://graphics.reuters.com/CLIMATE-CHANGE/ICE-CORES/zjvqkjkjlvx/#:~:text=Scientists%20are%20racing%20to%20collect,cases,%20it's%20already%20too%20late

The Alps' glaciers are on track for their highest mass losses in at least 60 years of record keeping, data shared exclusively with Reuters shows. By looking at the difference in how much snow fell in winter, and how much ice melts in the summer, scientists can measure how much a glacier has shrunk in any given year.
[...]
https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/exclusive-glaciers-vanishing-record-rate-alps-following-heatwaves-2022-07-26/


Glaciologist Andreas Linsbauer and assistant Andrea Millhaeusler drill a hole at a measuring point on the Pers Glacier near the Alpine resort of Pontresina, Switzerland July


People stand at a lookout point near Mount Piz Palue and Piz Bernina, near the Alpine resort of Pontresina, Switzerland July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann


Glaciologist Andreas Linsbauer and assistant Andrea Millhaeusler stand on a border moraine of the Pers Glacier near the Alpine resort of Pontresina, Switzerland July 21, 2022.


Host Dario Andenmatten of the Britannia Hut refuge talks during an interview with Reuters near the Alpine resort of Saas-Fee, Switzerland July 19, 2022. REUTERS/Emma Farge ..

https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/exclusive-glaciers-vanishing-record-rate-alps-following-heatwaves-2022-07-26/