The snow and ice accumulated in the Swiss Alps during the winter have already melted, said a surveillance service on Friday, marking the earliest arrival of a tilting point known as the “day of the loss of glaciers”. Any new cast iron by October will decrease the size of Swiss glaciers, according to the glacier surveillance service in Switzerland (glamos).
The critical threshold is generally reached in August and its early arrival is a new blow for the 1400 Swiss glaciers, which decreased at an alarming rate. “The day of the loss of glaciers is reached in Switzerland,” the chief of Glamos, Matthias Huss, wrote on X, explaining that the snowfall had been weak and that June had been the hottest second ever recorded.
“From now on, any melting of glaciers until October is unbearable,” said Huss. He said the only time the tilting point had been reached earlier had been “the 2022 record year”, which was reached on June 26. “You have to expect significant ice losses due to the extension of the cast iron season,” he added. The Glaciers of the Swiss Alps began to retreat about 170 years ago. This decline has first been modest, but in recent decades, the melting has accelerated considerably.
