The melting of the Alps – which experts attribute to global warming – has been rigorously monitored since the early 2000s. But researchers didn't know much about its evolution in previous decades, as only a few glaciers were closely monitored.
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To better understand its evolution, researchers from the Federal Polytechnic School of Zurich (EPFZ) and the Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) reconstructed the topography of the set of Swiss glaciers that existed in 1931.
“Based on the reconstructions and comparing with data from the 2000s, the researchers concluded that the volume of glaciers reduced by half between 1931 and 2016”, indicated the EPFZ and the WSL in a note.
“If we know the surface topography of a glacier at two different times, we can calculate the difference in ice volume,” stated the lead author of the study. study*, Erik Schytt Mannerfelt.
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The Fiescher Glacier, of which only a few small white marks remain in 2021, was part of a huge sea of ice in 1928.
According to scientists, glaciers have not retreated continuously in the last century and even had an increase in their masses in the 1920s and 1980s.
However, “our comparison between the years 1931 and 2019 clearly shows that there was an important glacial retreat during this period”, indicated one of the research authors, Daniel Farinotti.
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While they lost 50% of their volume between 1931 and 2016, it took them just six years – between 2016 and 2022 – to lose 12%, according to the Swiss glacier research network GLAMOS.
For Farinotti, the evidence is irrefutable: “The retreat of glaciers is accelerating.”
(With AFP)
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