00:00We just use these probes and try to find when it's getting hard that you reach the bottom
00:27of the snow.
00:28Then you can read how many meters.
00:32The glaciers are in a very bad state at the moment and the projections for the future
00:37show that this will hold on.
00:40So our new model results show that in Switzerland we are going to lose at least 70% of the total
00:47ice volume and this is the very best case if we emit no further CO2 after 2050 globally.
00:56In the worst case though we may lose all glaciers in Switzerland by 2100 so we will be somewhere
01:03in between but it's very likely that almost all glaciers are going to be lost and I sincerely
01:09hope that only at Aletsch Glacier, at this high elevation, we may be able to preserve
01:15some of the ice.
01:26The impact on the water resources go far beyond Switzerland.
01:42They impact the big streams of Europe like Rhône, Rhine, Danube but then there is the
01:49rise in global sea levels.
01:51If the glaciers are melting and we're speaking more about the glaciers in the polar regions
01:56where the biggest ice masses are located, if these glaciers are melting the global sea
02:01level is rising and it may be rising by up to one meter until 2100 and even more at the
02:08longer term.
02:09This is putting many big cities worldwide under threat and we cannot relocate New York
02:17in a few decades.
02:29The glaciers in Switzerland have retreated by, the volume retreated is about 40% since
02:352000.
02:36Of this 40%, 10% have been lost just in two years, so in 2022 and 2023.
02:45If we now imagine that these are not going to be such extreme years anymore but this
02:50is going to be the new normal, we will accelerate the glacier volume change or retreat enormously.
02:58So we're still hoping that those are extreme years and we stick to this 40% in the last
03:0325 years.
03:04We are about halfway through this year 25, glacier year 25 and at the moment we are still
03:23in the accumulation season where the snow helps the glacier to grow or at least to protect
03:28the glacier.
03:29The situation is not good at the moment.
03:31We have below average snow depth on Swiss glaciers and this is putting us in a bad
03:38situation regarding the next summer melting.
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