Pascal Egli has run on trails winding through the Alps for nearly two decades, but until this summer, he had never seen the mountains so bare.
Extreme heat waves had transformed the mountain landscape. Routes once considered easy were now dangerous. Snow bridges over crevasses collapsed, making certain areas impassable. Rocks had tumbled unexpectedly from glaciers and bare mountainsides, injuring and even killing some in their path.
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“By mid-June, it was really, really kind of shocking,” said Egli, who received his PhD in glaciology from the University of Lausanne in Switzerland this summer. “It was getting so hot and things are melting so fast, you couldn’t safely do certain 4,000-meter [13,000-feet] peak routes anymore because some crevasse bridges were a bit unsure.”
By the end of June, many mountaineers stopped going out on the glaciers — months earlier than normal. While European glaciers have been shrinking for decades, data and field reports show that the melting this summer is the most severe on record. Some glaciers have melted one to two months faster than normal, which researchers say is the latest drastic example of the effect of human-caused climate change.
And there’s already been wide impact: Ski resorts across the Alps closed the summer ski season early because of unsafe conditions. In rare occurrences, normal, easier routes were closed on mountains including Mont Blanc and Matterhorn.
“I would say it is off the charts compared to anything we’ve ever measured before,” Mylène Jacquemart, a glaciologist at ETH Zurich, said in an email. “We are currently seeing conditions that, even in a pretty bad year, we would only expect at the very end of the season. When we calculate the final mass balance at the end of September, I expect that it will be the worst year on record by a large margin.”
Andrea Fischer, a glacier scientist at the Austrian Academy of Science, agreed that this year’s melt season is exceptional. “This melt season does not compare to others, as we have no evidence of such an extreme melt in our records,” which began in 1948. Data shared with Reuters indicated mass loss in the Alps is the highest in at least 60 years.
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The Alps, as well as other European glaciers, play an important role in the region. Mountain snowpack provides water to major rivers, delivering up to 90 percent of water to lowland Europe for drinking, irrigation and hydropower. The Alps also attract more than 120 million people, like Egli, for adventure sports and to ski resorts. Declines in these Alpine glaciers can stress the economy, and the loss in snow cover can exacerbate global warming and increase sea level rise.
Winter snowpack was lower than normal — only half the typical amount at the end of the season, Jacquemart said — limiting the growth of the glacier. For instance, Switzerland’s Gries Glacier recorded its lowest snow quantity on record at about 53 percent below average in April.
At the end of winter and early spring, large plumes of dust from the Sahara coated the snow surface, darkening the glaciers. The darker surface absorbed more sunlight rather than reflecting it back into space, helping to warm what little snow had fallen.
Extreme heat waves had transformed the mountain landscape. Routes once considered easy were now dangerous. Snow bridges over crevasses collapsed, making certain areas impassable. Rocks had tumbled unexpectedly from glaciers and bare mountainsides, injuring and even killing some in their path.
10 steps you can take to lower your carbon footprint
“By mid-June, it was really, really kind of shocking,” said Egli, who received his PhD in glaciology from the University of Lausanne in Switzerland this summer. “It was getting so hot and things are melting so fast, you couldn’t safely do certain 4,000-meter [13,000-feet] peak routes anymore because some crevasse bridges were a bit unsure.”
By the end of June, many mountaineers stopped going out on the glaciers — months earlier than normal. While European glaciers have been shrinking for decades, data and field reports show that the melting this summer is the most severe on record. Some glaciers have melted one to two months faster than normal, which researchers say is the latest drastic example of the effect of human-caused climate change.
And there’s already been wide impact: Ski resorts across the Alps closed the summer ski season early because of unsafe conditions. In rare occurrences, normal, easier routes were closed on mountains including Mont Blanc and Matterhorn.
“I would say it is off the charts compared to anything we’ve ever measured before,” Mylène Jacquemart, a glaciologist at ETH Zurich, said in an email. “We are currently seeing conditions that, even in a pretty bad year, we would only expect at the very end of the season. When we calculate the final mass balance at the end of September, I expect that it will be the worst year on record by a large margin.”
Andrea Fischer, a glacier scientist at the Austrian Academy of Science, agreed that this year’s melt season is exceptional. “This melt season does not compare to others, as we have no evidence of such an extreme melt in our records,” which began in 1948. Data shared with Reuters indicated mass loss in the Alps is the highest in at least 60 years.
ADVERTISING
The Alps, as well as other European glaciers, play an important role in the region. Mountain snowpack provides water to major rivers, delivering up to 90 percent of water to lowland Europe for drinking, irrigation and hydropower. The Alps also attract more than 120 million people, like Egli, for adventure sports and to ski resorts. Declines in these Alpine glaciers can stress the economy, and the loss in snow cover can exacerbate global warming and increase sea level rise.
Winter rubble brings summer trouble
Punishing summer heat waves triggered the melt, but processes that initiated the rapid melt off began months ago.Winter snowpack was lower than normal — only half the typical amount at the end of the season, Jacquemart said — limiting the growth of the glacier. For instance, Switzerland’s Gries Glacier recorded its lowest snow quantity on record at about 53 percent below average in April.
At the end of winter and early spring, large plumes of dust from the Sahara coated the snow surface, darkening the glaciers. The darker surface absorbed more sunlight rather than reflecting it back into space, helping to warm what little snow had fallen.
