GENEVA (AP) — A Swiss Academy of Sciences panel is reporting a dramatic acceleration of glacier melt in the Alpine country, which has lost 10% of its ice volume in just two years after high summer heat and low snow volumes in winter.
The team said the “massive ice loss” stemmed from a winter with very low volumes of snow — which falls on top of glaciers and protects them from exposure to direct sunlight — and high summer temperatures.
Snow depths measured in the first half of February were generally higher than in the winters of 1964, 1990 or 2007, which were also characterized by low snowfalls, the team said.
But snow levels sank to a new record low in the second half of the month of February, reaching only about 30% of the long-term average.
Over half of automated monitoring stations above 2,000 meters that have been in place for at least a quarter-century tallied record-low levels of snow at the time.
Swiss meteorologists reported in August that the zero-degree Celsius level — the altitude where water freezes — had risen to its highest level ever recorded, at nearly 5,300 meters (17,400 feet), which means that all the Swiss Alpine peaks faced temperatures above freezing.
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