Heat melts Alps snow and glaciers, sparking water shortages
'Everything has dried up,' said Noemie Dagan, caretaker of the Selle refuge, a 60-bed chalet perched at 2,673 metres in the Ecrins mountain range.
The snowfield that typically feeds the shelter's water supply now 'looks a bit like what we would expect at the end of July or early August,' she said.
'We are nearly a month early in terms of the snow's melting,' she added.
MOUNTAIN SHELTERS UNDER PRESSURE
The Selle refuge lacks a water tank and depends entirely on snowmelt. If the flow stops, the shelter will have to close, as it did in mid-August last year.
Dagan has tried to prevent another shutdown by installing a kilometre-long pipe to tap a nearby glacier near the Pic de la Grave. But the steep, unstable slopes make the setup vulnerable, especially as storms in the range grow stronger and more frequent.
Over 15 years in the job, Dagan said she has witnessed a 'metamorphosis' of the glaciers and mountains that once acted as natural reservoirs.
'We are basically the sentinels who have seen what is coming,' she said.
GLACIERS NO LONGER RELIABLE
Thomas Boillot, a mountain guide, said the idea of water running out at alpine shelters had once 'never even crossed our minds.'
That is no longer the case. Melting snowfields, reduced precipitation, and reshaped glaciers are combining to disrupt the natural flow of water. In some cases, future supply may need to be pumped from lower altitudes.
Scientists warn that climate change is hitting the Alps nearly twice as hard as other regions. Many glaciers could vanish entirely by the end of the century, leaving only traces behind.
In neighbouring Switzerland, authorities say snow and ice reserves have melted five to six weeks earlier than usual.
Xavier Cailhol, an environmental science PhD student and guide, recently toured Mont Blanc and called the heatwave's effects 'brutal.'
'I started ski-touring in June with 40 centimetres of powder snow. I ended up on bare glaciers, even at 3,700 metres near the Midi Peak,' he said.
A snow cover helps protect the glacier beneath by reflecting sunlight, he noted. But this year, 'above 3,200 metres, it's drier than anything we've seen before.'
One stark example is the Bossons Glacier, which looms over the Chamonix valley. A patch of gravel that formed on the ice is now expanding, and absorbing more heat, accelerating the melt.
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