Swiss glaciers broke melting rate records in 2022 due to the twin effects of winter drought and intense summer heat, a clear and direct reflection of climate change.
These glaciers have lost three cubic kilometers of ice, which is 6% of their total mass in the country. “There is no way to slow down the melt in the short term,” Matthias Haas, director of the Swiss Ice Data Network, who is responsible for tracking the file, told AFP.
And if we cut carbon dioxide emissions to protect the climate, “it could help save at best about a third of the total mass in Switzerland”, according to Haas, who noted that abandoning this would lead to the almost complete disappearance of glaciers in Switzerland “by the end of the year .Current century”.
Declared tragedy
In spring, alpine snow has never been so thin, and Saharan sand smeared the snow, which subsequently absorbed more heat and melted faster, depriving glaciers of a protective layer of snow since early summer. The ice was then exposed to the heat wave without the traditional protective shield.
At the end of summer, a piece of land at the confluence of the Cinfloron Glacier and the Six Rouge Glacier at an altitude of just over 2800 meters remains without ice for the first time since Roman times. According to a report released this spring by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, melting snow and ice is one of the main threats to global warming.
catastrophic damage
Swiss experts noted that “the damage to small glaciers has been catastrophic.” After announcing total decline in 2019, Basel Binding in the east of the country is “on the brink of total extinction”, as are Vadriy Dal Korvach in the southeast or Švarsbakveran in the south. The situation worsened so much that officials stopped measuring the size of the glacier. At an altitude of three thousand meters, in the Engadine region of southeastern Switzerland and in the lower part of the canton of Valais, “a layer of ice four to six meters thick, sometimes more than twice the maximum level” recorded earlier. “was removed.”
The panel stressed that “even at the highest measurement points, such as at the Jungfraujoch (around 3,500 meters), we recorded the loss of large areas” of ice. The report indicated that the phenomenon was accelerating as “records show that many glaciers are breaking up and small islands of rock appear in the middle of the glacier when the ice is not very thick. All of these paths accelerate destruction.” According to experts, these changes also show the importance of glaciers in hot and dry years in terms of water and energy supply. This is of great importance for a country that depends on hydropower resources for more than 60% of its total energy production.
Matthias Hass explained: “If in fifty years we see the same climatic conditions (…), the effect will be much stronger, because in fifty years we expect the glaciers to disappear, which means that they will not be able to give us water” .
archaeological discoveries
Melting glaciers also have unexpected consequences. Trekkers are increasingly finding horrifying discoveries that emerge from the melting ice that has been trapped inside them for decades and even centuries. This can be a source of amazing discoveries for archaeologists as they have artifacts in front of them that are thousands of years old. Also unexpectedly, the melting of a glacier between Italy and Switzerland shifted the border between the two countries at the point of water contact in this place, forcing the two countries to enter into difficult diplomatic negotiations.
