Environment
Late snow is a small ray of hope for Swiss glaciers
A scientist stands in the Swiss Allalingletscher. photo
© R. Moser/VAW-ETH Zurich/dpa
After a devastating year for the Alpine glaciers, the latest measurements allow us to breathe a sigh of relief. However, it is questionable whether the snow will be enough to protect against too much summer melt.
Thanks to snowfall late in the past few weeks, the Swiss glaciers have been spared an absolute minimum snow record this year. However, almost everywhere there is hardly more snow than in the extreme year 2022, as the head of the Glamos glacier measurement network, Matthias Huss, told the German Press Agency.
“Glaciers are the ambassadors of the climate crisis,” he tweeted last week. Glamos measures the amount of snow on around 20 glaciers and has just evaluated the latest data.
The lack of snow at the beginning of winter did not bode well, said glaciologist Andreas Bauder from ETH Zurich. Due to the snowfall since Easter, the large snow deficits have been reduced somewhat. In addition, the winter at high altitudes over 3000 meters does not end until May, so further snowfalls are possible. Compared to the average for the years 2013 to 2022, there is currently a well below-average amount of snow on most Swiss glaciers.
For the overall balance of the glaciers, winter is only one side of the coin, as Bauder says. The decisive factor is the melt over the summer. In 2022, the winter ended early, followed by a rapid summer meltdown. “We had record losses on all glaciers,” he said. According to the experts, several snowy and very cool years would be necessary to make up for this.
“The alarm bells have been ringing for a long time”
Before 2022, the winter with the least snowfall in the ten-year period from 2013 to 2022 was winter 2016/2017. 2016 was the hottest year since industrialization (1850-1900) in terms of global average temperature. Man-made greenhouse gases are responsible for climate change, with effects all over the world: The consequences include severe floods, droughts, severe storms and sea level rise.
2016 coincided with the El Nino weather phenomenon. Every few years in the southern Pacific, it causes the temperature at the sea surface to rise and also contributes to warming. Experts see signs that another El Nino will develop in 2023.
“The alarm bells have been ringing for a long time and loudly,” says Bauder about the development. His concern is that the existing amount of snow, which offers protection from the sun in summer, is not enough. White snow reflects the sun’s rays well. When it’s gone and the dark ice emerges, the melt intensifies, even in summers that aren’t particularly hot or radiant.
Glamos counts 1400 glaciers in Switzerland. By far the largest is the 20 km long Aletsch Glacier in the canton of Valais. It has prominent medial moraines that make it look like a gigantic highway. They are formed by the confluence of several glacier arms.