Glaciers in Switzerland Melt at Record Speed

Glaciers in Switzerland have melted a record amount this year. GLAMOS, an organization that monitors glaciers in Switzerland, says that it’s the most melting since monitoring started more than a century ago.

The melting this year has been extreme. Rock that had been under the glaciers for thousands of years emerged, as well as dead bodies, and a plane that crashed decades ago. Other small glaciers have almost completely disappeared.

Matthias Huss, the head of the Swiss Glacier Monitoring Network (GLAMOS), says that for a long time they were expecting a situation like this because of climate change. However, he says it’s shocking to realize that the future is “right here, right now.”

More than half of the glaciers in the Alps are located in Switzerland. The temperatures there are increasing faster than other parts of the world.

Scientists in the Alps region, including Huss, have done emergency repair work at many locations to adjust their measuring equipment because of the melting ice.

The heavy glacier loss this year is due to a winter with very little snowfall and two heatwaves in the summer.

Normally, snowfall in winter replaces the ice that melts in summer. The snow also reflects sunlight and protects the glaciers from melting.

If the temperatures and emissions continue to rise, the glaciers in the Alps are expected to lose more than 80% of their size by 2100. However, a report in 2019 by the UN (the United Nations) says that many glaciers will disappear even if we lower emissions now.