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kassy

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Re: Alpine Glaciers / Europe
« Reply #50 on: July 26, 2022, 05:53:41 PM »
The borderline runs along a drainage divide – the point at which meltwater will run down either side of the mountain towards one country or the other.

Why not just pencil it in at the current one when they came up with this? Nice quirky detail.

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kassy

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Re: Alpine Glaciers / Europe
« Reply #51 on: July 30, 2022, 12:09:10 PM »
Alps glaciers are retreating even earlier than predicted say scientists

The Alps' glaciers are on track for their highest mass losses in at least 60 years of record keeping, Reuters reports, based on data the news agency has been shown by glaciologists

By looking at the difference in how much snowfall there was in winter and how much ice melts in the summer, scientists can measure how much a glacier has shrunk in any given year.

Since last winter, which brought relatively little snowfall, the Alps have sweltered through two big early summer heatwaves – including one in July marked by temperatures near 30 degrees Celsius in the Swiss mountain village of Zermatt.

During this heatwave, the altitude at which water froze was measured at a record high of 5,184 meters – higher than Europe's highest mountain Mont Blanc - compared with the normal summer level of between 3,000-3,500 meters.

Meanwhile, temperatures in the Alps are warming at around 0.3 Celsius per decade — around twice as fast as the global average.

If greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, the Alps glaciers are expected to lose more than 80 percent of their current mass by 2100. Whatever emissions action is taken now, many will disappear regardless, thanks to higher temperatures baked in by past emissions, according to a 2019 report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Already, Morteratsch is much changed from the glacier depicted on the region's tourist maps. The long tongue of ice that once reached deep into the valley below has shrunk back by nearly 3 kilometers, while the depth of the snow and ice pack has thinned by up to 200 meters. A parallel glacier Pers flowed into it until 2017 but has now receded so much that an expanding strip of grit lies between them.

The dire situation this year raises concern that the Alps' glaciers might vanish sooner than expected. With more temperatures continuing to rise, Matthias Huss, who leads Glacier Monitoring Switzerland, is pessimistic about the future.

"We are seeing model results, not expected for a few decades, are happening now," Huss said. "I did not expect to see such an extreme year so early in the century."

https://newseu.cgtn.com/news/2022-07-29/Alps-glaciers-retreating-even-earlier-than-predicted-say-scientists-1c2NvusVL8s/index.html
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Stephan

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Re: Alpine Glaciers / Europe
« Reply #52 on: July 30, 2022, 01:10:59 PM »
Record melting of alpine glaciers. Swiss experts think that around 5% of their volume will be lost this summer. Temperatures of 0°C can be found only above 4,500 m, as high as the highest mountains in Wallis.
A lot of rivers now have a lot of water, some dams were overflown by melt water whereas in N and NW parts of Switzerland it is extremely dry, some smaller rivers have no water any more.

A report (in German) with some videos is available on https://www.wetteronline.de/wetterticker, July 28, 12:18H.
It is too late just to be concerned about Climate Change

Tor Bejnar

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Re: Alpine Glaciers / Europe
« Reply #53 on: July 31, 2022, 12:31:39 AM »
from the internet:
Quote
das Wallis n (proper noun, usually definite, definite genitive des Wallis' or (with an article) des Wallis) Valais (a canton of Switzerland)
Arctic ice is healthy for children and other living things because "we cannot negotiate with the melting point of ice"

kassy

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Re: Alpine Glaciers / Europe
« Reply #54 on: August 01, 2022, 01:45:22 PM »
Heatwaves force closure of popular Alpine hiking routes due to melting snow

Melting ice and glaciers caused by Europe’s heatwaves have forced popular Alpine hiking routes to close.

The Alps usually hosts thousands of tourists every summer but warmer weather has caused hazardous conditions along its normally safe routes.

Routes to Mont Blanc, which sits between France, Italy and Switzerland, and the Matterhorn have been forced to shut with many tours suspended.

Pierre Mathey, the head of the Swiss mountain guide association, said: “Currently in the Alps, there are warnings for around a dozen peaks, including emblematic ones like Matterhorn and Mont Blanc.

“Usually we see such closures in August, but now they have started at the end of June and are continuing in July,” he added.

...

Reportedly for the first time in a century, mountain guides are also refraining from offering tours to the Jungfrau mountain peak in Switzerland.

https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/alps-hiking-tracks-closed-heatwave-b2135020.html

And also:

ZERMATT SUSPENDS SUMMER SKIING AS GLACIER MELTS

It is the latest resort to call off summer skiing as the warm summer temperatures take their toll.  Hintertux in Austria is now the only on summer ski resort in the Alps open to the general public.

In recent days the freezing level in the Swiss Alps has been at 5,184m – way above the peaks and far above the glacier slopes in Zermatt.

With no fresh snow and no refreeze overnight the slopes are not good enough for skiing and snowboarding.

Crevases are said to be opening up as the melt accelerates.

The warm temperatures follow a poor winter for snow and the snowpack was 20% below normal at the start of the summer season.

The ski area is now closed but the resort has stressed that the measure is temporary and it will re-open as soon as conditions allow.

The glacier ski area of Zermatt is normally open 365 days per year and offers the highest skiing in the Alps.

...

https://planetski.eu/2022/07/29/zermatt-suspends-summer-skiing-as-glacier-melts/
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kassy

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Re: Alpine Glaciers / Europe
« Reply #55 on: August 12, 2022, 05:58:56 PM »
Swiss mountain pass ice to melt completely within weeks

Geneva (AFP) – The thick layer of ice that has covered a Swiss mountain pass for centuries will have melted away completely within a few weeks, a ski resort said Thursday.

Following a dry winter, the summer heatwaves hitting Europe have been catastrophic for the Alpine glaciers, which have been melting at an accelerated rate.

The pass between the Scex Rouge and Tsanfleuron glaciers has been iced over since at least the Roman era.

But as both glaciers have retreated, the bare rock of the ridge between the two is beginning to emerge -- and will be completely ice-free before the summer is out.

"The pass will be entirely in the open air in a few weeks," the Glacier 3000 ski resort said in a statement.

While the ice measured around 15 metres (50 feet) thick in 2012, the ground underneath "will have completely resurfaced by the end of September".

Land unseen in centuries
The ridge is at an altitude of 2,800 metres in the Glacier 3000 ski domain and effectively marks the border between the Vaud and Wallis cantons in western Switzerland.

Skiers could glide over the top from one glacier to the other. But now a strip of rock between them has emerged, with just the last remaining bit of ice left.

"No-one has set foot here for over 2,000 years; that's very moving," said Glacier 3000 chief executive Bernhard Tschannen.

The Scex Rouge glacier is likely to turn into a lake within the next 10 to 15 years. It should be about 10 metres deep with a volume of 250,000 cubic metres (8.8 million cubic feet).

The ski resort is working out how to adapt to the new reality if people cannot ski between the two glaciers.

more on:
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220811-swiss-mountain-pass-ice-to-melt-completely-within-weeks

15 meters in ten years...

Also water skiing seems to be an up and coming alpine sport.  ::)
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kassy

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Re: Alpine Glaciers / Europe
« Reply #56 on: August 24, 2022, 05:56:30 PM »
The Swiss Alps have lost half their glaciers in 80 years

The Swiss Alps lost an additional 12 per cent of glacial ice in the six years between 2016 and 2021

The climate crisis is dramatically reshaping the Alps, leaving the mountain range’s glaciers mere fragments of their former selves.

Researchers in Switzerland recently documented just how bad that melting has become, estimating that the country has lost about half of all glacial ice since the 1930s.

Using photos from the early 20th century, the scientists were able to quantify how the climate crisis has impacted the mountains over the past eight decades.

Scientists at ETH Zurich, a Swiss university, and the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research analysed photographs of the mountains taken between 1916 and 1947.

They were able to model how big the glaciers were during this period — with a median date of 1931 — and compare that size to the glacier size in 2016. Results were published this week in The Cryosphere.

Overall, they estimate that about 51.5 per cent of the glacial ice in the Swiss Alps has disappeared since 1931. That comes to an average of 0.73 cubic kilometres of ice lost per year.

Recent photos comparing glaciers in the Swiss Alps to the same locations in the early 20th century show dramatic ice losses.

see link for those:
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/switzerland-alps-glaciers-melt-b2151182.html
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kassy

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Re: Alpine Glaciers / Europe
« Reply #57 on: August 24, 2022, 06:08:46 PM »


Andrea Fischer, a glacier scientist at the Austrian Academy of Science, agreed that this year’s melt season was exceptional. “This melt season does not compare to others, as we have no evidence of such an extreme melt in our records,” which began in 1948. Data indicated mass loss in the Alps is the highest in at least 60 years.

The Alps, as well as other European glaciers, play an important role in the region. Mountain snowpack provides water to major rivers, delivering up to 90 per cent of water to lowland Europe for drinking, irrigation and hydropower. The Alps also attract more than 120 million people, like Egli, for adventure sports and to ski resorts. Declines in these Alpine glaciers can stress the economy, and the loss in snow cover can exacerbate global warming and increase sea level rise.

Punishing summer heat waves triggered the melt, but processes that initiated the rapid melt off began months ago.

The winter snowpack was lower than normal – only half the typical amount at the end of the season, Jacquemart said – limiting the growth of the glacier. For instance, Switzerland’s Gries Glacier recorded its lowest snow quantity on record at about 53 per cent below average in April.

At the end of winter and early spring, large plumes of dust from the Sahara coated the snow surface, darkening the glaciers. The darker surface absorbed more sunlight rather than reflecting it back into space, helping to warm what little snow had fallen.

Spring was also abnormally warm and dry for much of Western Europe, with little snow falling at high elevations on the glacier.

Then summer heat came in full force early on. South-west Europe reached its highest average May maximum temperature in 55 years of records. Then Europe experienced its second-warmest June on record.

“The combined heat and lack of precipitation have put the glaciers in a state that is unprecedented,” said Jacquemart, who also works at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research. It’s alarming because there isn’t just one glacier experiencing high melt, but “rather the fact that the situation is so bad everywhere in the European Alps,” she said.

Satellite data showed several glaciers shrinking after a heat wave in mid-June that brought temperatures 10 degrees higher than average in some regions. After about a week of unusually high temperatures, the Sabbione Glacier, which feeds into a hydropower reservoir, lost about 35 per cent of its snow cover, according to glaciologist Mauri Pelto.

Losing snow cover early in the melt season is problematic because bare glacier ice melts 50 per cent faster than if it were covered with snow. As heat waves continued, melting hastened in July.

“Glacier melt there in July was higher than the ever-recorded maximum for the full season,” Fischer said.

Satellite data shows significant melting of the Rhone Glacier, which feeds into the Rhone River, from June to July. By July 15, the snow line on the glacier was located at 2950 metres – about 150 metres higher than is typical for this time of the year.

...

Fischer said the shifts coincide with long-term changes in the climate. Since the 1980s, the Alps have experienced an increase in temperature from 0.2 to 0.5 degrees Celsius per decade – significantly affecting snowfall and melt during the spring and summer.

“In the last two decades, the lack of summer snow got normal, and the melting season was getting longer and longer,” Fischer said in an email.

According to the Research Centre for Alpine Ecosystems, the duration of snow cover near the valley floor of the Northern Alps has been reduced by five weeks since the 1970s. By 2050, snow cover could be reduced by another four to five weeks.

Additionally, the number of hot days could increase by 15 to 30 days on the valley floor and in the mid-mountains. Today, the areas only experience two to five days of such temperatures.

“Northern Europe is a part of the globe which is projected to become warmer yet than the rest of the world,” said W. Tad Pfeffer, a professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder. “The Alps have been hit very hard. Glaciers are shrinking in Alaska, but not like the Alps.”

...

https://www.watoday.com.au/environment/climate-change/off-the-charts-glaciers-in-europe-experience-extreme-melt-20220819-p5bb71.html
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Tor Bejnar

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Re: Alpine Glaciers / Europe
« Reply #58 on: August 24, 2022, 09:02:45 PM »
Quote
“Glacier melt there in July was higher than the ever-recorded maximum for the full season,” Fischer said.
So depressing...
Arctic ice is healthy for children and other living things because "we cannot negotiate with the melting point of ice"

Phil.

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Re: Alpine Glaciers / Europe
« Reply #59 on: August 24, 2022, 10:19:18 PM »
The scary part is that the paper is describing the situation up to 2021, 'lost half of glacier ice in 80 years', and the second report says that 2022 is the worst year for melt ever.  So if the 2022 season loss were included it would be even worse!

kassy

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Re: Alpine Glaciers / Europe
« Reply #60 on: August 25, 2022, 04:10:06 PM »
Yes, already curious for this years end result...
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kassy

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Re: Alpine Glaciers / Europe
« Reply #61 on: September 01, 2022, 08:21:06 PM »
Switzerland's vanishing glaciers threaten Europe's water supply

Switzerland's glaciers have lost more than half their volume in less than a hundred years, and the long hot summer this year has accelerated the thaw, a new study shows.

The glaciers support ski resorts and attract climbers and hikers in summer, but are also essential to Europe's water supply. Now, communities across the Alps are worrying about their future.

In Switzerland, at 3,000m (9,800ft) above sea level, you expect to see ice. But above the village of Les Diablerets, where cable car company Glacier 3000 operates, there are now huge areas of bare rock.

Two glaciers, the Tsanfleuron and the Scex Rouge, have split apart, revealing ground not seen for thousands of years. "We're probably the first people walking here," says Bernhard Tschannen, who runs the company.

Mr Tschannen is watching one of Switzerland's top attractions disappear before his eyes.

Visiting tourists can see from the Eiger to the Matterhorn to Mont Blanc. They could also, until recently, walk across miles of pristine blue glacier.

Now the ice is broken up by rock, mud, and puddles. The change is dramatic.

"When we constructed this chairlift we had to dig seven metres into the ice. This was 23 years back," he explains. "Look,"' he points several metres further away, "where the glacier is now".

Scientists have been monitoring the shrinking of Alpine glaciers for years. A joint study by Zurich's Federal Institute of Technology and the Swiss Federal Office for Landscape compared topographic images of glaciers from the 1930s, to those from the last 10 years.

...

Mauro Fischer, a glaciologist at the University of Bern, is responsible for monitoring the Tsanfleuron and Scex Rouge. Every year in spring he installs ice measuring rods, and checks them regularly over the summer and autumn.

When he went to check them in July, he got a shock.

The rods had melted completely out of the ice, and were lying on the ground. His ice measurements, he says, were "off the chart - far beyond what we've ever measured since the beginning of the glacier monitoring, maybe three times more mass loss over one year than the average over the last 10 years".

...

Already this summer, freight along the Rhine in Germany has been interrupted because the water level is too low for heavily laden barges. In Switzerland, dying fish are being hastily rescued from rivers which are too shallow and too warm.

In France and Switzerland, nuclear power stations have had to reduce capacity because the water to cool them is limited.

Samuel Nussbaumer of the World Glacier Monitoring Service believes it is a sign of what is to come.

He says current projections suggest that by end of the century the only ice remaining will be high up in the mountains: "Above 3,500m there will still be some ice in 100 years. So, if this ice is gone, there won't be any water any more."

The extent of the loss this summer has focused minds. Glaciologist Mauro Fischer admits that even though he knew, because of his monitoring, what was happening, the outcome made him emotional. "It's as if the melting glaciers are crying. The high mountain environments tell us we really need to change. It makes me really sad."

...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62689707
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kassy

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Re: Alpine Glaciers / Europe
« Reply #62 on: September 27, 2022, 01:07:55 PM »
Germany loses another glacier as warm temps melt Alpine ice

ermany lost one of its few remaining glaciers this summer as exceedingly warm weather ate away Alpine ice at a faster pace than feared, a scientific report released on Monday showed.

The Bavarian Academy of Sciences said the state's Southern Schneeferner had lost its official status as a glacier due to rapid melting of its once sprawling ice sheet.

"The Schneeferner's ice thickness shrank significantly in large swathes and in most places no longer measures even 2 meters (6.5 feet)," the academy said in its latest findings.

It said even the thickest spot was now diminished to less than 6 meters compared to around 10 meters in 2018. The surface area of the glacier halved during the same period to about one hectare.

"That leads us to conclude that the remaining ice will completely melt away in the next one to two years," the academy said.

It said that the dramatic shrinkage meant that the periodic measurements carried out by the academy since 1892 would now be suspended.

The loss means Germany has only four remaining glaciers: Northern Schneeferner and Hoellentalferner on its highest mountain, the Zugspitze, and Blaueis and Watzmann in the Berchtesgaden Alps.

...

Bavaria's Environment Ministry said last year in a bombshell report that Germany could lose its last glaciers within the decade as climate change gathered pace.

https://www.dailysabah.com/life/environment/germany-loses-another-glacier-as-warm-temps-melt-alpine-ice
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kassy

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Re: Alpine Glaciers / Europe
« Reply #63 on: September 28, 2022, 09:14:13 AM »
For this year the Swiss glaciers lost 6% which is twice as much as in the previous record from 2003.

This is about three cubic kilometers of ice.

https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/worst-melt-year-record-swiss-glaciers-data-shows-2022-09-27/
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kassy

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Re: Alpine Glaciers / Europe
« Reply #64 on: October 19, 2022, 03:36:18 PM »
Glaciers in the Alps are melting faster than ever – and 2022 was their worst summer yet

...

Glaciologists like me used to use the word “extreme” to describe annual ice loss of around 2% of a glacier’s overall volume. This year Switzerland’s glaciers have lost an average of 6.2% of their ice – extreme indeed.


https://theconversation.com/glaciers-in-the-alps-are-melting-faster-than-ever-and-2022-was-their-worst-summer-yet-189197

Includes a discussion of the season which can be summarized by Saharan sand and a huge heatwave.
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Stephan

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Re: Alpine Glaciers / Europe
« Reply #65 on: October 19, 2022, 09:05:41 PM »
17 * 6.2% equals to 100%
17 + 2022 = 2039
No Swiss glaciers left in 2040 ???

(of course this "calculation" is incorrect, but this extreme melt must not go on)  >:(
It is too late just to be concerned about Climate Change

kassy

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Re: Alpine Glaciers / Europe
« Reply #66 on: October 19, 2022, 09:57:45 PM »
Yes that is not how it is done. Glaciers have an edge problem like the forests. If they get smaller they have more edges to warm from later. Also of course they will be thinner after this. Many glaciers high up have been hit.

We will have to wait to see if the summer pattern repeats. It was related to the same cut off low which dragged lots of heat up north to Europe so this is probably an outlier. 

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kiwichick16

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kassy

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Re: Alpine Glaciers / Europe
« Reply #68 on: August 23, 2023, 08:59:21 AM »
Italy's glacier temperatures rise above 0C amid Europe's new Nero heatwave


The glaciers in the Italian Alps are melting with increasing speed as another Europe heatwave keeps temperatures above 0C – even during the night.

...

As the hot spell continues, unusually high evening temperatures mean Italy's glaciers don't have enough time to regain ice overnight so the long-term pattern of decline is quickly accelerating, according to Francesco Pasi, of Italy’s National Research Council (CNR).

He told Yahoo News UK how at the Capanna Margherita – the highest mountain hut in Europe, sitting at 4,554 metres – temperatures reached 8.9C on Tuesday, one of the highest ever recorded at the site.

Pasi said that overnight, temperatures were mainly around 1.4C, while the previous night they only dipped below zero for a few hours.

"During the night, the glaciers are not going below zero and that's casing the very rapid and strong melting of the glaciers," the meteorologist said.

"We know it's already an established trend, the glaciers have been losing their mass for many years. But there’s no question about it, it's increasing and accelerating.

"The temperature in Switzerland and France is also being affected, so it's all over the Alps. It's really a big problem for all over the region."

...

https://www.aol.co.uk/news/italys-glacier-temperatures-rise-above-144853178.html
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Niall Dollard

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Re: Alpine Glaciers / Europe
« Reply #69 on: August 23, 2023, 10:53:32 AM »
At Vanoise a footbridge was swept away by surge of melting glacial water

Stephan

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Re: Alpine Glaciers / Europe
« Reply #70 on: August 27, 2023, 07:16:18 PM »
Another report (in German) about the extraordinary high temperatures in the Swiss Alps with a 0°C limit above 5,200 m (higher than any mountain in the alps) and low temperatures during night around 8°C at 3,600 m. The last 10 days caused an additional 1 m loss of glacier thickness. Smaller ice cliffs break down, little melting streams everywhere and again and again stones fall of the steep mountain slopes.
https://www.wetteronline.de/wetterticker/t-shirt-wetter-auf-fast-4000-meter-spuerbare-folgen-fuer-die-gletscher--e75dac01-c27c-49eb-bfcf-2b68dbd3dd79
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kassy

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Re: Alpine Glaciers / Europe
« Reply #71 on: September 23, 2023, 06:22:46 PM »
AP PHOTOS: In the warming Alps, Austria’s melting glaciers are in their final decades

JAMTALFERNER GLACIER, Austria (AP) — High up on an Alpine ridge beneath a ceiling of ice, water drips from above into a cave formed by the slowly shrinking Jamtalferner glacier.

In just a few years, Jamtalferner will be gone, and in a few decades, so might the rest of Austria’s glaciers as human-caused climate change warms up the world.

...

In the last few years, the Austrian glaciers have started losing mass from chunks breaking off onto dry land — a process known as dry calving, not seen in past centuries in the region.

“A few years ago we thought that they would last until about the end of this century, but now it looks like at the end of 2050, at the end of the first half of the century, there’ll be no glaciers in Austria anymore,” said Fischer.

more details and lots of pictures:
https://apnews.com/article/austria-glaciers-climate-change-bd142f30b3fee0563c5821fa2233369b


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Re: Alpine Glaciers / Europe
« Reply #72 on: September 28, 2023, 02:21:54 PM »
You might find this interesting (OK, might not be the best word)

https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/09/28/dramatic-acceleration-switzerland-has-lost-10-of-its-glaciers-in-the-last-two-years

By the way, thank you very much to all of you. Years reading you, and years learning new staff.



kassy

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Re: Alpine Glaciers / Europe
« Reply #73 on: September 29, 2023, 06:08:01 PM »
Well interesting is still a good fit. You´re welcome!
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oren

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Re: Alpine Glaciers / Europe
« Reply #74 on: September 30, 2023, 10:32:10 AM »
10% of Swiss glacier volume lost in just 2 years. Simply terrible.

Stephan

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Re: Alpine Glaciers / Europe
« Reply #75 on: October 01, 2023, 05:37:22 PM »
10% of Swiss glacier volume lost in just 2 years. Simply terrible.
I do not want to imagine that this melting rate continues or further accelerates. Most Swiss glaciers gone by 2050??
It is too late just to be concerned about Climate Change

kassy

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Re: Alpine Glaciers / Europe
« Reply #76 on: October 01, 2023, 09:49:48 PM »
Or earlier. And it will change all the waterways they fed over the season.
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kassy

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Re: Alpine Glaciers / Europe
« Reply #77 on: January 27, 2024, 06:36:24 PM »
Glacier Melting Destroys Important Climate Data Archive

As part of the Ice Memory initiative, PSI researchers, with colleagues from the University of Fribourg and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice as well as the Institute of Polar Sciences of the Italian National Research Council (CNR), analysed ice cores drilled in 2018 and 2020 from the Corbassière glacier at Grand Combin in the canton of Valais. A comparison of the two sets of ice cores published in Nature Geoscience shows: Global warming has made at least this glacier unusable as a climate archive.

Reliable information about the past climate and air pollution can no longer be obtained from the Corbassière glacier in the Grand Combin massif, because alpine glacier melting is progressing more rapidly than previously assumed. This sobering conclusion was reached by researchers led by Margit Schwikowski, head of the Laboratory for Environmental Chemistry at PSI, and Carla Huber, PhD student and first author of the study, when they compared the signatures of particulate matter locked in the annual layers of the ice. Glaciers are invaluable for climate research. The climatic conditions and atmospheric compositions of past ages are preserved in their ice. Therefore, they can serve, in much the same way as tree rings and ocean sediments, as a so-called climate archive for research.

Normally, the amount of particle-bound trace substances in ice fluctuates with the seasons. Substances such as ammonium, nitrate, and sulfate come from the air and are deposited on the glacier through snowfall: The concentrations are high in summer and low in winter, because lower amounts of polluted air can rise from the valley when the air is cold. The 2018 ice core, which was drilled from depths of up to 14 metres during a preliminary study and contains deposits dating back to 2011, shows these fluctuations as expected. But the core from 2020, from a depth of up to 18 metres – drilled under the leadership of PSI researcher Theo Jenk – shows those fluctuations only for the upper three or four annual layers. Deeper in the ice – that is, farther in the past – the curve indicating the concentration of trace substances becomes noticeably flatter, and the total amount is lower. Schwikowski’s team reports on this in the current issue of the journal Nature Geoscience.

Washed away by meltwater
Their explanation for the observed discrepancy: Between 2018 and 2020, the glacier melting must have been so strong that an especially large amount of water from the surface penetrated into the glacier and carried the trace substances it contained into the depths. “But apparently the water there did not freeze again, concentrating the trace substances,” the environmental chemist concludes, “but instead it drained off and literally washed them away.” Of course, that distorts the signatures of the layered inclusions. The climate archive is destroyed. It is as if someone had broken into a library and not only messed up all the shelves and books, but also stole a lot of books and mixed up the individual words in the remaining ones, making it impossible to reconstruct the original texts.

The researchers examined the meteorological data from 2018 through 2020: Since there is no weather station at the top of the Grand Combin, they combined data from the surrounding stations and extrapolated it for the study area on the mountain. According to this calculation, it was warm on the glacier in line with the general climatic trend, but these years were not extreme outliers. “From this we conclude that there was no singular trigger for this strong melting, but that it resulted from many warm years in the recent past,” Schwikowski says. “It seems a threshold has been crossed, which now has led to a comparatively strong effect.

and more on:
https://scienceblog.com/541989/glacier-melting-destroys-important-climate-data-archive/
Þetta minnismerki er til vitnis um að við vitum hvað er að gerast og hvað þarf að gera. Aðeins þú veist hvort við gerðum eitthvað.