Keystone-SDA
The state of health of the Aletsch glacier (VS) worries Legambiente, the Italian structure which monitors the evolution of the main glaciers in Italy and abroad. His report confirms that the glacier should disappear in 2100, if nothing is undertaken.
(Keystone-ATS) “The Aletsch glacier looks like an ocean of ice in great distress, despite the last snowfall in July,” said the environmentalists and scientists present at a press conference on Wednesday in Naters (VS).
Between 2000 and 2023, the glacier fell on average 40 meters per year, according to Glamos, the Swiss glacier surveillance network. At this rate and without taking into account a level of global warming above today, the glacier will disappear in its current form, in 2100. “It will only present ice plates at the highest altitudes”; have underlined several glaciologists.
“Always more worrying situation”
This study carried out jointly by the Caravan des glaciers de Legambiente, the main Italian ecological entity, CIPRA Italy and the Italian glaciological foundation highlighted an ever more worrying fragility and instability in the largest Alps glacier.
“We are mainly worried about the presence of unstable Mornes, active flaws along the upper sides of the glacier,” explain the experts. “The reason for this reality? The climate crisis with its increased increase in temperatures in the Alps, 2.9 degrees since the pre-industrial era (1850), according to the Swiss climate service. “
“On the Aletsch glacier, we have seen how the health of the glacier also affects the stability of the slopes,” continues Marco Giardino, professor of glaciology at the University of Turin. “The gradual decrease in the volume of this glacier has triggered a series of deformations on the left slope of the valley: fractures of growing sizes down and a speed of evolution that has increased over time.”
Search for Swiss interlocutors
At its sixth edition, the Caravan des glaciers aims to make politicians aware of the reduction of glaciers and the urgency of acting to save them. “We have thus created a manifesto, so that the European Union Monitore better the glaciers and develops governance, interdisciplinary work and international collaborations,” sums up Vanda Bonardo, the National Alpes de Legambiente official, to the research of Swiss political interlocutors.
Several aspects are processed in this document, such as biodiversity, tourism, mountain instability in connection with global warming, ecosystems and local development. “Our approach is an ecological and scientific partnership,” said Vanda Bonardo.
Two years after the dead
This publication is supported by 80 entities, such as the University of Turin, NGOs, Pro Natura and the Swiss Cipra, but also the German environment agency.
“As in the case of Blaten, only a rigorous study of the relationships between global warming and natural instability will better predict the evolution of the alpine environment and to plan a better management of the natural heritage and the territory,” recalls Marco Giardino, also vice-president of Cipra Italy.
Site classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Aletsch glacier and the second Swiss glacier which was analyzed by Legambiente after that of the Dead, in Graubünden, in 2023. It is only 20 km long.
