Switzerland/ Climate: ways to preserve glaciers above 3,000 meters

Strong global climate protection could save the glaciers of the Swiss Alps, especially those above 3000 m. Since 2000, the volume of glaciers in Switzerland has fallen by almost 40%.

Strong global climate protection could preserve more than a quarter of the ice in the Swiss Alps. According to the Swiss Academy of Natural Sciences (SCNAT), glaciers at altitudes of over 3,000 meters could survive in the long term.

On Friday, SCNAT published a fact sheet on the subject to mark the first World Glacier Day. The document summarizes the state of knowledge on glacier melt in the Alps, its many consequences and possible options for action.

Since 1850, an area of ice the size of the canton of Uri has been lost, and more than 1,000 small glaciers have disappeared completely. Glacier volume has shrunk by almost 40% since 2000, and by a total of 10% for the years 2022 and 2023 alone.

Globally, glacier volume shrank by a further 450 billion tonnes last year. On Friday, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in Geneva announced that this was the fourth largest decrease on record.

For the first time, research is taking these two record years into account in scenarios on the future of glaciers in the Alps. The as yet unpublished data show that there is less room for manoeuvre than previously thought.

The long-term preservation of glaciers will only be possible if greenhouse gas emissions are drastically reduced. This applies not only to the Alps, but to the whole world. Indeed, three quarters of mountain glaciers could be preserved if serious climate measures were taken, which would also make it possible to halt the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps.

Source: www.lenouvelliste.ch/