00:01Earth climate.
00:04Very severe ice loss.
00:06Researcher says snow reserves on alpine glaciers
00:10could be used up within days.
00:12By June 29th, this year's winter snow reserves on the glaciers
00:17could already be exhausted,
00:19according to Swiss glaciologist Matthias Huss.
00:23A Europe-wide heatwave is also taking a toll on glaciers.
00:26Huss told AFP that the Alps are expected to suffer
00:30very severe ice loss this year.
00:33The so-called Glacier Meltout Day could come as early as June 29th,
00:39after which the glaciers lose mass as melting continues.
00:43So far, this has only happened that early once before, in 2022.
00:49Huss, who heads Switzerland's glacier monitoring service GLAMOS,
00:53says the main reasons are the current heatwave, the hot spell in May,
00:57and another winter with too little snow.
01:00We are seeing enormous rates of erosion and melting of ice and snow
01:05across the entire alpine region, he said.
01:08The melting is beginning about three months earlier
01:11than would be considered healthy for the glaciers.
01:14He said he had just returned from the Rhone Glacier,
01:17where over the past ten days,
01:19the glacier tongue had lost about one meter in vertical height,
01:23meaning roughly one meter of ice vanished in just ten days.
01:27It is very impressive to see,
01:30and it is solely the result of the heatwave, he said.
01:34Huss stressed that one heatwave alone
01:36is usually not a major problem for glaciers.
01:39The real issue is prolonged periods of very high temperatures.
01:44It's a combination of intensity and duration, he explained.
01:48The more days we have with very high temperatures,
01:51whether 35 or 40 degrees, the worse it is for the glaciers.
01:56He added that this year's extremely poor glacier conditions
02:00were caused by a combination of unfortunate circumstances,
02:04including low snowfall in winter and Saharan dust in March.
02:08He sees a striking resemblance to 2022,
02:12the worst year ever recorded in the Alps for melt rates.
02:16This year, glaciers had about 25% less snow
02:20than they did on average between 2010 and 2020, Huss said.
02:25May was also unusually warm,
02:28causing the snow cover to disappear earlier
02:31and exposing the darker glacier ice beneath,
02:34which then absorbs more heat and melts faster.
02:37He therefore expects major ice loss
02:39even before the annual measurements in September.
02:43Looking ahead, he warned that the situation is alarming.
02:47Switzerland has tracked 1,200 glaciers
02:50that have disappeared over the past 50 years,
02:53and only about 1,300 remain today.
02:57If warming continues at the same pace as in recent decades,
03:01he said, only small remnants of ice will be left by 2100.
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