Latest news with #RhoneGlacier
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Photos show Swiss glaciers' uncertain future as 'ambassadors of climate change'
RHONE GLACIER, Switzerland (AP) — Drip, drip. Trickle, trickle. That's the sound of water seeping from a sunbaked and slushy Swiss glacier that geoscientists are monitoring for signs of continued retreat by the majestic masses of ice under the heat of global warming. In recent years, glaciologists like Matthias Huss of the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, known as ETHZ, and others have turned to dramatic measures to help protect glaciers like the Rhone Glacier, which feeds into the river of the same name that runs through Switzerland and France. One of those desperate steps involves using giant sheets to cover the ice like blankets to slow the melt. Switzerland is continental Europe's glacier capital, with some 1,400 that provide drinking water, irrigation for farmland in many parts of Europe including French wine country, and hydropower that generates most of the country's electricity. The number has been dwindling. The Alpine country has already lost up to 1,000 small glaciers, and the bigger ones are increasingly at risk. Drilling into glaciers to track what's happening inside Huss hosted The Associated Press for a visit to the sprawling glacier this month, as he carried out his first monitoring mission as summer temperatures accelerate the thaw. Under normal conditions, glaciers can regenerate in the winter, but climate change is threatening that. 'I always say glaciers are the ambassadors of climate change because they can spread this message in a very understandable way," Huss said. "They also cause good feelings because glaciers are beautiful. We know them from our holidays.' The vast expanse of blue, gray and white ice is riddled with cracks and grooves, and Huss says his teams at the Swiss GLAMOS glacier monitoring group have spotted a new phenomenon in Switzerland: holes appearing beneath the surface that at times widen so much that the ice above collapses. Huss uses an auger to bore into the ice, sending frosty chips upward as if from a gushing fountain. It's part of a process that involves using stakes and poles to track ice loss from melting. A better understanding of glacier melt Huss monitors melting not just at the top but also from the base of glaciers. 'Normally glaciers melt from the top because of the warm air, because of their radiation from the sun. But in recent years we realized at several sites that there is a substantive melt from the bottom,' Huss said. 'If there are some channels in the ice through which air is circulating, this can excavate big holes under the ice.' The Alps were covered with ice 20,000 years ago, but no more. It's the same story elsewhere. Experts have warned that some two-thirds of the world's glaciers are set to disappear by the end of this century Huss says only humans can help save them. 'It's difficult to save this very glacier because it could only be saved — or at least made to retreat slower — by bringing down CO2 emissions," he said. 'But everybody can contribute on their own to reduce CO2 emissions as far as possible." 'This will not help this glacier immediately, but it will help all glaciers in the long range,' he added. "This is the important thing that we should think of if we see this melting ice and this big retreat — that it's time to act now.' A glacier gives way, and a village is destroyed The concerns about Switzerland's glaciers intensified recently after the southwestern village of Blatten, tucked near the Birch Glacier, was largely destroyed by a slide of rock and glacier ice in May . The village had been evacuated ahead of the slide, which covered dozens of homes and buildings and left just a few rooftops visible. A review of data showed that the Birch Glacier was a rarity in that it has been advancing while most glaciers have been receding. And its advance had been increasing in recent years, to the point that it was flowing at about 10 meters (about 30 feet) per day shortly before the collapse — a rate Huss called 'completely unsustainable.' Huss said the landslide was triggered by rocks piling onto the glacier, though he also called Birch's advance a 'precursor." The main takeaway from the Birch Glacier collapse, Huss says, is that 'unexpected things happen.' 'If you ask me, like three weeks ago, nobody would have guessed that the whole village is going to be destroyed,' he said. "I think this is the main lesson to be learned, that we need to be prepared.' ___ AP journalist Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report. ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at .
Associated Press
11 hours ago
- Science
- Associated Press
Photos show Swiss glaciers' uncertain future as 'ambassadors of climate change'
RHONE GLACIER, Switzerland (AP) — Drip, drip. Trickle, trickle. That's the sound of water seeping from a sunbaked and slushy Swiss glacier that geoscientists are monitoring for signs of continued retreat by the majestic masses of ice under the heat of global warming. In recent years, glaciologists like Matthias Huss of the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, known as ETHZ, and others have turned to dramatic measures to help protect glaciers like the Rhone Glacier, which feeds into the river of the same name that runs through Switzerland and France. One of those desperate steps involves using giant sheets to cover the ice like blankets to slow the melt. Switzerland is continental Europe's glacier capital, with some 1,400 that provide drinking water, irrigation for farmland in many parts of Europe including French wine country, and hydropower that generates most of the country's electricity. The number has been dwindling. The Alpine country has already lost up to 1,000 small glaciers, and the bigger ones are increasingly at risk. Drilling into glaciers to track what's happening inside Huss hosted The Associated Press for a visit to the sprawling glacier this month, as he carried out his first monitoring mission as summer temperatures accelerate the thaw. Under normal conditions, glaciers can regenerate in the winter, but climate change is threatening that. 'I always say glaciers are the ambassadors of climate change because they can spread this message in a very understandable way,' Huss said. 'They also cause good feelings because glaciers are beautiful. We know them from our holidays.' The vast expanse of blue, gray and white ice is riddled with cracks and grooves, and Huss says his teams at the Swiss GLAMOS glacier monitoring group have spotted a new phenomenon in Switzerland: holes appearing beneath the surface that at times widen so much that the ice above collapses. Huss uses an auger to bore into the ice, sending frosty chips upward as if from a gushing fountain. It's part of a process that involves using stakes and poles to track ice loss from melting. A better understanding of glacier melt Huss monitors melting not just at the top but also from the base of glaciers. 'Normally glaciers melt from the top because of the warm air, because of their radiation from the sun. But in recent years we realized at several sites that there is a substantive melt from the bottom,' Huss said. 'If there are some channels in the ice through which air is circulating, this can excavate big holes under the ice.' The Alps were covered with ice 20,000 years ago, but no more. It's the same story elsewhere. Experts have warned that some two-thirds of the world's glaciers are set to disappear by the end of this century Huss says only humans can help save them. 'It's difficult to save this very glacier because it could only be saved — or at least made to retreat slower — by bringing down CO2 emissions,' he said. 'But everybody can contribute on their own to reduce CO2 emissions as far as possible.' 'This will not help this glacier immediately, but it will help all glaciers in the long range,' he added. 'This is the important thing that we should think of if we see this melting ice and this big retreat — that it's time to act now.' A glacier gives way, and a village is destroyed The concerns about Switzerland's glaciers intensified recently after the southwestern village of Blatten, tucked near the Birch Glacier, was largely destroyed by a slide of rock and glacier ice in May. The village had been evacuated ahead of the slide, which covered dozens of homes and buildings and left just a few rooftops visible. A review of data showed that the Birch Glacier was a rarity in that it has been advancing while most glaciers have been receding. And its advance had been increasing in recent years, to the point that it was flowing at about 10 meters (about 30 feet) per day shortly before the collapse — a rate Huss called 'completely unsustainable.' Huss said the landslide was triggered by rocks piling onto the glacier, though he also called Birch's advance a 'precursor.' The main takeaway from the Birch Glacier collapse, Huss says, is that 'unexpected things happen.' 'If you ask me, like three weeks ago, nobody would have guessed that the whole village is going to be destroyed,' he said. 'I think this is the main lesson to be learned, that we need to be prepared.' ___ AP journalist Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report. ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
Washington Post
12 hours ago
- Climate
- Washington Post
Switzerland's ebbing glaciers show a new, strange phenomenon: Holes reminiscent of Swiss cheese
RHONE GLACIER, Switzerland — Climate change appears to be making some of Switzerland's vaunted glaciers look like Swiss cheese: Full of holes. Matthias Huss of the glacier monitoring group GLAMOS offered a glimpse of the Rhone Glacier — which feeds the eponymous river that flows through Switzerland and France to the Mediterranean — shared the observation with The Associated Press this month as he trekked up to the icy expanse for a first 'maintenance mission' of the summer to monitor its health.
The Independent
12 hours ago
- Climate
- The Independent
Switzerland's ebbing glaciers show a new, strange phenomenon: Holes reminiscent of Swiss cheese
Climate change appears to be making some of Switzerland's vaunted glaciers look like Swiss cheese: Full of holes. Matthias Huss of the glacier monitoring group GLAMOS offered a glimpse of the Rhone Glacier — which feeds the eponymous river that flows through Switzerland and France to the Mediterranean — shared the observation with The Associated Press this month as he trekked up to the icy expanse for a first 'maintenance mission" of the summer to monitor its health. The state of Switzerland's glaciers came into stark and dramatic view of the international community last month when a mudslide from an Alpine mountain submerged the southwestern village of Blatten. The Birch Glacier on the mountain, which had been holding back a mass of rock near the peak, gave way — sending an avalanche into the valley village below. Fortunately, the town had been evacuated beforehand. Experts say geological shifts and, to a lesser extent global warming, played a role. The Alps and Switzerland — home to the most glaciers in any European country by far — have seen them retreat for about 170 years, but with ups and downs over time until the 1980s, he said. Since then, the decline has been steady, with 2022 and 2023 the worst of all. Last year was a 'bit better," he said. "Now, this year also doesn't look good, so we see we have a clear acceleration trend in the melting of glaciers,' said Huss, who also is a lecturer at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, ETHZ, said in beaming sunshine and with slushy ice dripping underfoot. Less snow and more heat create punishing conditions The European Union's Copernicus climate center said last month was the second-warmest May on record worldwide, although temperatures in Europe were below the running average for that month compared to the average from 1991 to 2020. Europe is not alone. In a report on Asia's climate released Monday, the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization said reduced winter snowfall and extreme summer heat last year 'were punishing for glaciers' — with 23 out of 24 glaciers in the central Himalayas and the Tian Shan range suffering 'mass loss' in 2024. A healthy glacier is considered "dynamic," by generating new ice as snow falls on it at higher elevations while melting at lower altitudes: The losses in mass at lower levels are compensated by gains above. As a warming climate pushes up the melting to higher altitudes, such flows will slow down or even stop altogether and the glacier will essentially become 'an ice patch that is just lying there,' Huss said. 'This is a situation we are seeing more and more often on our glaciers: That the ice is just not dynamic anymore," he said. "It's just resting there and melting down in place.' This lack of dynamic regeneration is the most likely process behind the emergence and persistence of holes, seemingly caused by water turbulence at the bottom of the glacier or air flows through the gaps that appear inside the blocks of ice, Huss said. 'First the holes appear in the middle, and then they grow and grow, and suddenly the roof of these holes is starting to collapse," he said. "Then these holes get visible from the surface. These holes weren't known so well a few years ago, but now we are seeing them more often.' Such an affected glacier, he said, "is a Swiss cheese that is getting more holes everywhere, and these holes are collapsing — and it's not good for the glacier.' Effects felt from fisheries to borders Richard Alley, a geosciences professor and glaciologist at Penn State University, noted that glacier shrinkage has wide impacts on agriculture, fisheries, drinking water levels, and border tensions when it comes to cross-boundary rivers. 'Biggest worries with mountain glaciers may be water issues — now, the shrinking glaciers are supporting summertime (often the dry season) flows that are anomalously higher than normal, but this will be replaced as glaciers disappear with anomalously low flows,' he said in an email. For Switzerland, another possible casualty is electricity: The Alpine country gets the vast majority of its power through hydroelectric plants driven from its lakes and rivers, and wide-scale glacier melt could jeopardize that. With a whirr of a spiral drill, Huss sends ice chips flying as he bores a hole into the glacier. Then with an assistant, he unfurls a jointed metal pole — similar to the basic glacier-monitoring technology that has existed for decades — and clicks it together to drive it deep down. This serves as a measuring stick for glacier depth. 'We have a network of stakes that are drilled into the ice where we determine the melting of the mass loss of the glacier from year to year,' he said. 'When the glacier will be melting, which is at the moment a speed of about 5 to 10 centimeters (2-4 inches) a day, this pole will re-emerge.' Reaching up over his head — about 2.5 meters (8 feet) — he points out the height of a stake that had been drilled in in September, suggesting that an ice mass had shrunk by that much. In the super-hot year of 2022, nearly 10 meters of vertical ice were lost in a single year, he said. Some glaciers have gone for good The planet is already running up against the target cap increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius in global temperatures set in the Paris Climate Accord of 2015. The concerns about global warming that led to that deal have lately been overshadowed by trade wars, conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East and other geopolitical issues. 'If we manage to reduce or limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, we couldn't save this glacier,' Huss said, acknowledging many Swiss glaciers are set to disappear in the future. As a person, Huss feels emotion. As a glaciologist, he is awestruck by the speed of change. 'It's always hard for me to see these glaciers melting, to even see them disappearing completely. Some of my monitoring sites I've been going to for 20 years have completely vanished in the last years," he said. 'It was very sad — if you just exchange this beautiful, shiny white with these brittle rocks that are lying around.' 'But on the other hand,' he added, "it's also a very interesting time as a scientist to be witness to these very fast changes.' ___ Keaten reported from Geneva. ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
Associated Press
12 hours ago
- Climate
- Associated Press
Switzerland's ebbing glaciers show a new, strange phenomenon: Holes reminiscent of Swiss cheese
RHONE GLACIER, Switzerland (AP) — Climate change appears to be making some of Switzerland's vaunted glaciers look like Swiss cheese: Full of holes. Matthias Huss of the glacier monitoring group GLAMOS offered a glimpse of the Rhone Glacier — which feeds the eponymous river that flows through Switzerland and France to the Mediterranean — shared the observation with The Associated Press this month as he trekked up to the icy expanse for a first 'maintenance mission' of the summer to monitor its health. The state of Switzerland's glaciers came into stark and dramatic view of the international community last month when a mudslide from an Alpine mountain submerged the southwestern village of Blatten . The Birch Glacier on the mountain, which had been holding back a mass of rock near the peak, gave way — sending an avalanche into the valley village below. Fortunately, the town had been evacuated beforehand. Experts say geological shifts and, to a lesser extent global warming, played a role. The Alps and Switzerland — home to the most glaciers in any European country by far — have seen them retreat for about 170 years, but with ups and downs over time until the 1980s, he said. Since then, the decline has been steady, with 2022 and 2023 the worst of all. Last year was a 'bit better,' he said. 'Now, this year also doesn't look good, so we see we have a clear acceleration trend in the melting of glaciers,' said Huss, who also is a lecturer at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, ETHZ, said in beaming sunshine and with slushy ice dripping underfoot. Less snow and more heat create punishing conditions The European Union's Copernicus climate center said last month was the second-warmest May on record worldwide, although temperatures in Europe were below the running average for that month compared to the average from 1991 to 2020 . Europe is not alone. In a report on Asia's climate released Monday , the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization said reduced winter snowfall and extreme summer heat last year 'were punishing for glaciers' — with 23 out of 24 glaciers in the central Himalayas and the Tian Shan range suffering 'mass loss' in 2024. A healthy glacier is considered 'dynamic,' by generating new ice as snow falls on it at higher elevations while melting at lower altitudes: The losses in mass at lower levels are compensated by gains above. As a warming climate pushes up the melting to higher altitudes, such flows will slow down or even stop altogether and the glacier will essentially become 'an ice patch that is just lying there,' Huss said. 'This is a situation we are seeing more and more often on our glaciers: That the ice is just not dynamic anymore,' he said. 'It's just resting there and melting down in place.' This lack of dynamic regeneration is the most likely process behind the emergence and persistence of holes, seemingly caused by water turbulence at the bottom of the glacier or air flows through the gaps that appear inside the blocks of ice, Huss said. 'First the holes appear in the middle, and then they grow and grow, and suddenly the roof of these holes is starting to collapse,' he said. 'Then these holes get visible from the surface. These holes weren't known so well a few years ago, but now we are seeing them more often.' Such an affected glacier, he said, 'is a Swiss cheese that is getting more holes everywhere, and these holes are collapsing — and it's not good for the glacier.' Effects felt from fisheries to borders Richard Alley, a geosciences professor and glaciologist at Penn State University, noted that glacier shrinkage has wide impacts on agriculture, fisheries, drinking water levels, and border tensions when it comes to cross-boundary rivers. 'Biggest worries with mountain glaciers may be water issues — now, the shrinking glaciers are supporting summertime (often the dry season) flows that are anomalously higher than normal, but this will be replaced as glaciers disappear with anomalously low flows,' he said in an email. For Switzerland, another possible casualty is electricity: The Alpine country gets the vast majority of its power through hydroelectric plants driven from its lakes and rivers, and wide-scale glacier melt could jeopardize that. With a whirr of a spiral drill, Huss sends ice chips flying as he bores a hole into the glacier. Then with an assistant, he unfurls a jointed metal pole — similar to the basic glacier-monitoring technology that has existed for decades — and clicks it together to drive it deep down. This serves as a measuring stick for glacier depth. 'We have a network of stakes that are drilled into the ice where we determine the melting of the mass loss of the glacier from year to year,' he said. 'When the glacier will be melting, which is at the moment a speed of about 5 to 10 centimeters (2-4 inches) a day, this pole will re-emerge.' Reaching up over his head — about 2.5 meters (8 feet) — he points out the height of a stake that had been drilled in in September, suggesting that an ice mass had shrunk by that much. In the super-hot year of 2022, nearly 10 meters of vertical ice were lost in a single year, he said. Some glaciers have gone for good The planet is already running up against the target cap increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius in global temperatures set in the Paris Climate Accord of 2015. The concerns about global warming that led to that deal have lately been overshadowed by trade wars, conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East and other geopolitical issues. 'If we manage to reduce or limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, we couldn't save this glacier,' Huss said, acknowledging many Swiss glaciers are set to disappear in the future. As a person, Huss feels emotion. As a glaciologist, he is awestruck by the speed of change. 'It's always hard for me to see these glaciers melting, to even see them disappearing completely. Some of my monitoring sites I've been going to for 20 years have completely vanished in the last years,' he said. 'It was very sad — if you just exchange this beautiful, shiny white with these brittle rocks that are lying around.' 'But on the other hand,' he added, 'it's also a very interesting time as a scientist to be witness to these very fast changes.' ___ Keaten reported from Geneva. ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at .
