http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20030816/sc_afp/europe_weather_alps_030816051258
Europe's
largest glacier shrivels under global warming
Sat Aug 16, 2003, 1:12 AM ET
[ Click
here to see photograph from original article... ]
CAPTION:
"The Aletsch glacier, the largest in the Alps,
is shrinking under the impact of global warming."
(AFP/File)
RIEDERALP, Switzerland (AFP) - Switzerland's Aletsch glacier,
the largest in the Alps, is imposing enough to generate a wind
of its own, but the 23-kilometre long (14-mile) river of ice
is visibly shrivelling under the impact of global warming.
"In the last 140
years it has moved back three kilometres
(two miles)," Laudo Albrecht, a Swiss nature conservation
expert said, standing on a ridge above the sweating glacier.
He was clutching a
graph which also shows that the ice flow
has melted faster in the past decade or two, and this summer's
heatwave is likely to deepen the trend.
The Aletsch and the
immediate area were designated a World Heritage
site in December 2001, not only because of the spectacular nature
of the landscape of rocky peaks, wooded slopes, meadows and glaciers,
according to UNESCO (news - web sites).
The UN's Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organisation
also explained that "the global phenomenon of climatic change
is particularly well illustrated in the region".
Albrecht pointed across
the valley to a contrasting band of
colour along the opposite slope, like a trace of grime on an
emptied bath. It shows that the Aletsch has lost about 200 metres
(660 feet) in depth along most of its length since the 1860s.
The layer of ice is
now 100 to 150 metres thick near the
foot of the glacier, below the southern Swiss mountain village
of Riederalp.
"This summer fits
the developments of the past decade, that's
what worries me. Not that this summer is so hot or dry, but
because it fits this trend," Albrecht, who has been observing
the glacier for 20 years, said.
Switzerland has been
ailing under record high temperatures
for more than two months, with a peak over 41 degrees Celsius
(106 Fahrenheit).
Despite the cool wind
generated by the huge mass of the glacier,
the temperature at an altitude of 2,000 metres (6,600 feet)
hovered around 25 degrees Celsius (77 Fahrenheit) in the shade.
Albrecht
set foot on the Aletsch for the first time this year
on June 10. He returned a month later and found that the end
of the ice flow had retreated five metres (16 feet) further up
the valley.
On the steep slopes
around Riederalp, farmers are struggling
to comfort their cows. Sprinklers create patches of green among
the parched Alpine meadows.
The herds amble along
mountain tracks, sending clouds of dust
billowing in the air, and gather around water holes.
Albrecht, who was born
and raised in this hardy, mountainous
region, heads an information centre set up by the Swiss nature
conservancy foundation, Pro Natura, in Riederalp.
He is the first to
point out that exceptional weather has
happened before, and insists that he always highlights the
wonders of nature before he mentions the stresses and strains
to visitors.
Yet, he now firmly
believes that climate change is not simply
a natural phenomenon, but that a human hand -- pollution --
is helping it along.
"If
you want to change people's behaviour, you need time.
The question I now ask myself is, do we have enough time?"
Albrecht commented.
"We've had extremes
like this before, to some degree it's a
normal part of nature. But what disturbs me is that we have
extremes frequently now, in some years storms, or other years
without rain."
Swiss authorities have
warned that the hot, dry conditions
have triggered landslides and rockfalls, and made conditions
for mountaineers even more precarious.
Albrecht sees another
danger. When thunderstorms return and
rain starts to fall again on the hardened ground, torrents
will sweep loose material down into the inhabitated valleys
below.
In 1993, the
nearby town of Brig was hit by a torrent of mud
and rock carried by a river, cloaking the streets in a deep
layer of hardened mud and killing two people.
"It's
profoundly disturbing, our living environment is being
changed. Nature can live with that, but the question is, can we?"
Albrecht observed.
This summer, the increased
flow of water from the melting ice
is exceeding the needs of hydroelectric power plants. A dam below
the Aletsch is opened occasionally to stop it overflowing,
according to Albrecht.
That can bring dangers:
two tourists were killed recently
on a nearby river bed after water was released upstream.
It can also bring short-term
benefits: local Swiss power
companies are exporting electricity to Italy, less than
20 kilometres (12 miles) away, where record low water levels
in rivers caused by the heatwave have prompted power cuts.
Yet even those who
have the most to gain from the power
trade do not think it is worth it.
"With the glaciers,
our future capital is melting,"
an executive for the power firm EOS told the Swiss
newspaper Le Temps.
