Swiss glaciers' melting rate peaks to worst in century, lose over 6% volume in 2022 

Swiss glaciers have lost more than six per cent of their total volume this year, recording its worst melting rate since record keeping began over a century ago, the Swiss Academy of Sciences said in their report on Wednesday.

The cause of glacial retreat has been attributed to exceptionally low winter snowfall coupled with back-to-back heatwaves.

According to their report, about three cubic km of ice have melted away this year, which amounts to about three trillion litres of water.

The scale of the ice melt was so drastic that several bodies and a plane that were buried deep for decades were found, while millenia-era rocks that were covered under snow re-emerged, reports Reuters news agency.

Small glaciers across the Alps like Pizol in the east near Liechtenstein, Vadret dal Corvatsch near St Moritz in the southeast, and Schwarzbachfirn in central Switzerland have “practically disappeared", the academy said.

A similar situation was observed in the neighbouring Germany, in which the ice sheet on the Southern Schneeferner in the Alps receded so much this summer that it is no longer being considered a glacier, The Bavarian Academy of Sciences in Germanynoted.

“2022 was a disastrous year for Swiss glaciers: all ice-melt records were smashed by the great dearth of snow in winter and continuous heatwaves in summer,” the Swiss Academy of Sciences said in a statement, citing the data collected by Swiss Glacier Monitoring Network, the Swiss glacier monitoring network.

A 2019 report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had warned that the Alps' glaciers would lose more than 80 per cent of their current mass by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise.

The report had noted that many glaciers would disappear regardless of whatever emissions action is taken now, due to high levels of global warming.

(With inputs from agencies)

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