Swiss glaciers benefited from significant snowfall this winter.
The weather was even “a blessing” for these glaciers, according to the Swiss head of glaciological surveys.
A cool summer could also allow glaciers to gain some ice.
Reassuring news for Swiss glaciers. These masterpieces of nature, very impacted by climate change, benefited from significant snowfall this winter, thus allowing an improvement in the situation compared to previous years, indicated Friday June 21 Matthias Huss, responsible of the Swiss glaciological survey network (Glamos).
“At the summer solstice, the state of Swiss glaciers is better than in recent years”he wrote on his X account.
“Losses will be limited”
Matthias Huss, however, tempered things. “Will this be enough for the glaciers to advance? Probably not”he said, before emphasizing that “losses will be limited”. “A cool summer could even result in a slight gain” of ice, the manager also said.
At the beginning of June, Matthias Huss highlighted on X that the weather this year had been a “blessing” for Swiss glaciers. “Their condition compared to the baseline at the beginning of June has further improved and is significantly above average in all regions”he also added.
31% more snow
In a report published at the end of May, Glamos reported snowfall significantly above average on glaciers in all regions of Switzerland, “with average snow depths of 3 to 6 meters”. According to Glamos surveys carried out on 14 Swiss glaciers, extrapolated to all 1,400 glaciers in the Alpine country, there was around 31% more snow at the end of April than the average for the years 2010 to 2020. “One of the best winter seasons ever for Swiss glaciers”rejoiced Glamos.
Swiss glaciers have melted as much during the years 2022 and 2023 as between 1960 and 1990, under the effect of extreme weather conditions exacerbated by climate change. Little snow in winter and very high temperatures in summer cost glaciers 10% of their volume between 2022 and 2023, noted the group of experts responsible for studying the cryosphere within the Swiss Academy of Sciences. natural. After the record loss of 6% in 2022, they fell by another 4% in 2023. This was then the second largest decline since measurements began.
