Photos show the uncertain future of Swiss glaciers as “climate change ambassador”

Rhone Glacier (AP) in Switzerland – drip, drip. trick stream, trick stream.

This is the sign that geoscientists are monitoring the majestic ice cubes that continue to retreat under the heat of global warming, thus monitoring the signs that geoscientists continue to retreat.

Glacierologists such as Matthias Huss (known as Ethz) of the ETH Zurich have turned to dramatic measures to help protect glaciers such as Rhone Glacier, which run like a river of the same name in Switzerland and France.

One of these desperate steps involves using giant sheets to cover ice like a blanket to slow down melting.

Switzerland is the glacier capital of the continent, with about 1,400 providing drinking water, irrigating farmland in many parts of Europe for the French wine country, and hydropower from most of the country’s electricity.

This number has been decreasing. Alpine countries have lost as many as 1,000 small glaciers, and larger glaciers are increasingly at risk.

Break into the glacier to track what is happening inside

Houss chaired the Associated Press this month to visit the scattered glaciers, as summer temperatures accelerated to thaw, and he performed his first monitoring mission. Under normal circumstances, glaciers can regenerate in winter, but climate change is threatening this.

“I always say glaciers are ambassadors for climate change because they can spread this information in a very understandable way,” Husseth said. “They also cause good feelings because glaciers are beautiful. We know them from the holidays.”

The vast space of blue, gray and white ice is filled with cracks and grooves, Husseth said his team at the Glamos Glacier Monitoring Team in Switzerland has discovered a new phenomenon in Switzerland: holes that appear under the surface appear, sometimes wide, that the ice collapses.

Huss uses an auger to enter the ice and sends the frost chip upwards, as if it is from the fountain of the fountain. This is part of a process that involves tracking the loss of ice in melt using bets and poles.

A better understanding of glacier melting

Huss surveillance melted not only at the top, but also from the bottom of the glacier.

“Glaciers usually melt from the top because of the radiation from glaciers, but in recent years we have realized at several sites that there is substantial melting at the bottom,” Husseth said. “If there are some passage loops on the ice, this can dig large holes under the ice.”

20,000 years ago, the Alps were covered with ice, but no longer covered. The same story elsewhere. Experts warn that about two-thirds of the world’s glaciers will disappear by the end of this century

Hus said that only humans can help save them.

“It’s hard to preserve this very glacier because it can only be preserved by reducing CO2 emissions (or at least making retreats slower),” he said. “But everyone can contribute to the minimization of CO2 emissions as much as possible.”

“This won’t help this glacier immediately, but it will help all glaciers at a distance,” he added. “If we see this melting ice and a great retreat, it’s an important thing we should consider, and now it’s time to take action.”

Glaciers give way, a village is destroyed

In May, the focus of Blatten, a southwestern village hiding near the birch glacier, was destroyed in May by rocks and glacier ice sliders. The village has been evacuated in front of the slide, covering dozens of houses and buildings with only a few roofs visible.

A review of the data shows that birch glaciers are rare because it has been developing, while most glaciers have retreated. Its progress has been increasing in recent years, so that it flows about 10 meters (about 30 feet) a day shortly before its collapse – a rate known as “totally unsustainable.”

Houss said the landslide was triggered by the accumulation of rocks onto the glaciers, although he also called Birch’s advance “the pioneer.”

Hus said the main gain from the collapse of the birch glacier was that “thing unexpected happened.”

“If you ask me, like three weeks ago, no one would have guessed that the entire village would be destroyed,” he said. “I think that’s the main lesson we need to be prepared for.”

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AP reporter Jamesy Keaten contributed to the report in Geneva.

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