Swiss glaciers have lost a record 6% volume this year

This year, the volume of glaciers in Switzerland has decreased by 6%, or 3 cubic meters. km. At the same time, the loss of only 2% of the volume of glaciers is already qualified as extreme. According to the Swiss Glacier Monitoring Service (GLAMOS), this is a record reduction in their volume for all the years of research that has been going on for more than a hundred years. And this figure is almost twice the previous record, set in 2003, when there were also very hot summers and little rainfall in winter. Behind this year’s anti-record is also the lack of sufficient precipitation in the form of snow – it fell there only at the beginning of winter – as well as a very hot summer.

GLAMOS estimates that several small glaciers have virtually disappeared this summer, such as those on Mount Pizol in the canton of St. Gallen, Vadret dal Corvatsch in the canton of Graubünden, and the Schwarzbachfirn in the canton of Uri. In the Engadine and in the southern part of the canton of Valais, at an altitude of 3 thousand meters above sea level, a 4-6-meter layer of ice completely melted. On average, 3 m of ice melted in all mountainous regions. This opens up rocks that have been under the ice for thousands of years. And as experts say, the water formed from the melting of ice only in July and August of this year would be enough to fill all the reservoirs in the Swiss Alps from scratch.

Alena Miklashevskaya