Global Warming: Swiss Glaciers Melted More Than Ever in 2018

Global Warming: Swiss Glaciers Melted More Than Ever in 2018
SHARE

The year 2018 was a “year of extremes” for Swiss glaciers which lost 2.5% of their volume due to the extreme heat during spring and summer. According to a report published today by the Swiss Academy of Natural Sciences, global warming significantly affected Swiss glaciers which have lost “one-fifth of their volume over the past decade.”

“Until the end of March, there was still more than twice as much snow above 2,000 meters as usual, and snow depths were the highest recorded in the last 20 years,” the scientists noted. But the unusual winter snowfall were reflected by extreme temperatures and drought from between March and October this year.

“While last summer was the hottest after that of 2003 and 2015, the April-September period was by far the hottest ever in the country,” experts point out.

This heat, coupled with drought, “melted not only huge amounts of winter snow but also melted the ice. Total melting has never reached such a level except in 2003,” Matthias Huss, head of the Swiss Glacier Survey Network (GLAMOS) told for AFP.

Global warming affected Swiss glaciers

While the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) once again trigger the alarm last week about the speed of global warming, Swiss experts see the evolution of the European country’s glaciers as the very expression of what is nowadays happening all over the world.

“Glacier retreat is directly linked to climate change,” says Huss. “Glaciers are very sensitive to high air temperatures, and these are clearly linked to high concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere,” he added.

And if global warming continues at the same rate, “many small glaciers will disappear completely, and the largest glaciers will continue to retreat significantly,” across the world, the scientists warned.

“In twenty years, we will still be able to admire glaciers such as the great Aletsch glacier [the largest glacier in the Alps, in the canton of Valais, in southern Switzerland] but the meltdown of glaciers will continue to accelerate,” Huss concluded.


SHARE

Post Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.