Climate change, glacier area reduced by 10% in just two years

Swiss glaciers are experiencing their worst melt this year after a record melt in 2022, reducing their total area by 10% in just the past two years.

Thụy Sỹ: Biến đổi khí hậu, diện tích sông băng giảm 10% chỉ trong hai năm

Glaciers in Switzerland are shrinking. (Source: Reuters)

The above is the assessment given in a report conducted by the Glacier Monitoring Service in Switzerland (GLAMOS) and published on September 28.

The report shows a steady decline in glacier area during Switzerland's hottest summer on record, showing that the amount of ice lost in the past two years is equivalent to the amount of ice melted in the three decades before 1990.

GLAMOS stressed that the situation is "catastrophic". Mr. Matthias Huss, head of GLAMOS, said that 2023 is a "difficult" year for glaciers because of very little snowfall while the summer is too warm. The combination of these two factors is the worst possible scenario.

This year, low snowfall combined with a summer melt season that started early and ended late has led to a large loss of ice, said GLAMOS, which monitors 176 of Switzerland's nearly 1,400 glaciers.

According to statistics, about 50% of glaciers in the Alps are concentrated in Switzerland, which has witnessed a temperature increase about twice the global average temperature increase due to climate change.

Faced with the rapid rate of ice loss, GLAMOS has been forced to halt one of its small glacier monitoring programmes in central Switzerland due to its potential danger.

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