Published 17.17
On Monday, the year’s accumulated snow and ice on Switzerland’s glaciers is expected to have melted away. The melting is a result of the June and May heat waves in Europe.
– It happens three months earlier than normal, says glaciologist Mathias Huss.
The mass of ice that formed after this year’s snow-poor winter in the Alps has almost melted. Monday is expected to be the tipping point for when the original mass of the glacier begins to shrink, for this year.
– The problem is when we have very high temperatures that last a long time, says Mathias Huss, who heads the monitoring institute Glamos in Switzerland.
In the last ten days, the ice on the Rhone Glacier in Switzerland has melted one meter vertically.
– We see huge ablations, ice and snow melting rates all over the Alps.
The tipping point for when the glacier begins to shrink has, during the last century, occurred on average in mid-August.
