The Alps to Lose a Record Number of Glaciers in the Next Decade

It claims that, in the Alps, only 12% of the glaciers –  roughly 430 out of 3,000 – will exist in 75 years’ time, if global temperatures rise by +1.5° Celsius.

And a record number of glaciers in the Alps will be lost in the next 10 years.

The study was carried out by an international team, led by researchers at ETH Zurich – the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.

It is considered one of the world’s leading universities for science and technology.

It’s the first time a calculation has been made of how many glaciers globally are likely to remain by the end of the century and for how long.

There are currently 211,000 glaciers worldwide.

Melting glaciers in Alberta, Canada. Image © PlanetSKI

Their fate depends on how sharply the planet warms.

If the global temperature rises by +4° Celsius, only about 18,000 glaciers would remain by the end of the century.

If the rise is +1.5 ° Celsius, there would be around 100,000.

Currently around 1,000 glaciers are being lost every year.  The researchers found that this could climb to 3,000 a year in just 15 years’ time, even if countries meet their targets for cutting carbon emissions.

“Looking at the number of glaciers disappearing, the Alps could reach their peak loss rate as early as 2033 to 2041,” the study says.

“Depending on how sharply the planet warms, this period may mark a time when more glaciers vanish than ever before.

“Worldwide, the peak glacier loss rate will occur about 10 years later and could rise from 2,000 to 4,000 glaciers lost each year.”

For the Alps, the outlook is stark.

The researchers say that if current climate policies steer the world towards a temperature rise of +2.7° C, only about 110 glaciers would remain in Central Europe by 2100 – a mere 3% of today’s total.

Rhône Glacier. Image © ETH Zurich Chair of Glaciology

“At +4° C, that number would plunge to around 20. Even medium-sized glaciers such as the Rhône Glacier would shrink to tiny remnants of ice or disappear completely.

“In this scenario, the mighty Aletsch Glacier would fragment into several smaller parts.”

The Aletsch Glacier is in Switzerland, the country where – according to separate recent research by ETH – 1,000 glaciers vanished between 1973 and 2016.

Retreating alpine glaciers. Image © PlanetSKI

“For the first time, we’ve put years on when every single glacier on Earth will disappear,” says Lander Van Tricht, lead author of the study, which was published on 15th December in Nature Climate Change.

The largest glaciers will take the longest to melt but the study’s findings suggest that regions with many small glaciers at lower elevations or near the equator are particularly vulnerable.

This includes the Alps, the Caucasus, the Rocky Mountains, as well as parts of the Andes and African mountain ranges that lie in low latitudes.

“In these regions, more than half of all glaciers are expected to vanish within the next 10 to 20 years,” says Van Tricht, a researcher at ETH Zurich’s Chair of Glaciology and the WSL research institute.

The authors say the results of their work underline how urgently ambitious climate action is needed.

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