Alpine Glacier Melting Causing Drastic Changes Shown in Compared Space Imagery from Switzerland
Cool, Catch-Up on the European Alps' Melting Ice Capades!
Strap on your hiking boots, people! Here's a mind-boggling overview of what's been a-changin' in the European Alps over the past four decades. Let's dive right in.
Our beloved, gigantic snowy range — stretching over 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) across eight countries — has been feeling the heat, with a record number of glaciers shrinking and disappearing. The seemingly mighty Great Aletsch Glacier, the largest chunk of ice in the Alps, has lost its cool, retreating more than 4,300 feet (1,300 meters) since 1984, as revealed by NASA satellite imagery. Yep, you read that right. It's not just a lonely glacier feeling the chills—neighbors like Oberaletsch and Fiescher glaciers have also been making their way to Thailand (ok, maybe not quite).
The Landsat 5's Thematic Mapper and Landsat 8's Operational Land Imager (OLI) snaps captured this iceberg-calibre transformation. While there's been some cloud cover in the newer image, the lack of ice sure ain't hard to miss. Replacing the shiny, white glacier are more areas of dark, rocky terrain beneath, highlighting the devastating loss. NASA reports that the timing of the snapshot wasn't ideal, as it missed depicting the inevitable glacial melt from the previous years.
The thinning and shrinkage aren't limited to Aletsch Glacier. The entire Alpine region is facing a chilly situation, with glaciers melting like ice cubes on a summer day. As mentioned earlier, the Oberaletsch glacier has retreated a cool 787 feet (240 meters) since 1984, while the Fiescher Glacier clocks in with more than 3,281 feet (1,000 meters) of retreat over the same period.
Last year, Swiss glaciers sizzled like a grilled cheese sandwich on a summer day, with unexpectedly high melting rates despite abundant snowfall in winter and spring. These winter storms, it seems, weren't enough to compensate for the record ice losses brought on by a sweltering August and even some Sahara desert dust, which brought the chill to a whole 'nother level.
In 2024, Swiss glaciers lost a solid 2.5% of their volume, according to Reuters. The loss is so significant that Central Europe, including Switzerland, saw a jaw-dropping 39% decrease in glacial ice between 2000 and 2024, as researchers explained in Nature.
So, grab your sunglasses and sunscreen, because it’s undoubtedly gonna be a scorcher for everyone’s favorite ice caps! With America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recording February 2023 as the third-warmest ever, we might sadly see more drastic images of ice losses in the future.
To put things in perspective, the current rate of glacial ice loss in the European Alps, particularly in Switzerland, is more alarming than a metal concert without earplugs. From 2000 to 2023, the Alps and Pyrenees lost about 40% of their glacier volume[3]. In Central Europe, which includes Switzerland, glaciers have lost approximately 39% of their ice since the year 2000[2][4]. Still, there's hope that awareness of this issue might just inspire some action!
- By 2024, Swiss glaciers are predicted to have lost a significant portion of their volume, raising concerns about future ice losses.
- The Alpine region is experiencing a rapid rate of climate-change effects, including the thinned and shrinking of glaciers.
- In the past four decades, many glaciers in the European Alps have thinned and receded, with the Great Aletsch Glacier retreating over 4,300 feet since 1984.
- The average temperature continues to rise, contributing to Earth's changing climate and causing glaciers like those in the European Alps to melt at alarming rates.
