Most of the Alpine glaciers continue becoming smaller
The glaciers in the Austrian Alps reduced by 17 metres in average last year. None of 95 glaciers being measured by the Austrian Alpine Club did not get bigger. The volunteers of this organisation found a loss at 97 per cent of them. The above-average temperatures of last summer contributed to it.
Fifteen glaciers, double amount compared to the year 2010, have got smaller by more than 30 metres, some of them even by 50 to 60 metres. From the biggest Austrian glacier Pasterze at the foot of Grossglockner there have melt away 40 metres.
In the Alps the climate changes cause the problems not only to the glaciers, but also to the mountains themselves. Swiss giant Matterhorn is falling into pieces because of the warming according to the findings out by local scientists, other mountain peaks are endagered, too.
The cycle of melting and freezing of a glacier mountain causes cracks in the surface of the mountain. If these are too big, whole pieces of the rock break off the mountain. And just this progress is much faster at Matterhorn than it has been supposed so far. German magazine Bild has informed that the temperature increase by a few degrees has a big influence on the mountains.
“So far we have been worried about the fate of the Alpine glaciers. New scientific findings out, however, show that even the most famous Alpine peaks are endagered. The climate change thus brings us much more problems than we were willing to admit a short time ago,“ commented the scientifique findings out Dalibor Dostal, the director of the European Wildlife conservation organisation.
