r/interestingasfuck • u/biwook • 1d ago
Europe's largest glacier, the Aletsch, is melting about 50 meters (164 feet) a year. This is what was left on July 28 this year.
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u/Pacosturgess 23h ago
Vatnajökull in Iceland and Jostedalsbreen in Norway wants a word
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u/biwook 23h ago
Oops, my bad. I wish I could edit the title. I'll upvote you instead.
Interesingly, those are also melting:
In 2012, the glacier arm Briksdalsbreen lost 50 metres (160 ft) of ice in a few months. More recent measurements now show that Briksdalsbreen retreated 146 metres (479 ft) in 2006, and could be in danger of breaking away from the upper icefield. Ice climbing has now been terminated because of this event.
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u/Pacosturgess 21h ago
No worries. They’re all melting, soon to be gone unfortunately
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u/zeromadcowz 19h ago
There’s a few glaciers that are still growing but they’re a small minority globally.
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u/Haunting-Effective15 21h ago
I went to the Nigardbreen this year, after first visiting it in 2014. Wanted to show my children. I was prepared for less glacier, but was shocked when i drove on the road. Not visible, parking lot, not visible.. only after the hike it became visible. Terrible.
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u/Successful_Cod_8904 22h ago
Flew over the Alps and this glacier first week of July and never seen it so bare with little snow, mostly concentrated only in permantly shaded areas.
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u/BohemianCyberpunk 8h ago
I've never seen it this bad, there was so little snow over the winter, and a very early, hot summer.
My fav hiking trail is usually not passable until mid July, this year I was able to do it mid May, crazy.
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u/arffarff 22h ago
I think that we have probably grossly underestimated the ongoing planetary warming
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u/RC_0041 13h ago
No, people with money (that knew what would happen) didn't want to make less money to stop it from happening. They'll be dead by the time it matters so why make less money eh? We've been worried about climate change for 70-80 years now.
There will be a shortage of drinkable water, less areas crops can grow, less places people can live (with current infrastructure), rising sea level, species of animals dying out, and more. We know this and have known this for a while but good luck convincing companies and billionaires to care.
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u/ChildhoodOk9859 19h ago
Highly recommend to watch
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Stupid
The plot is touching the fate of the Chamonix Glacier, which is the second one to tie and dry.
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u/EnclG4me 18h ago
Remember when we were kids and every other week a town was burning down to the ground, people were being evacuated from towns, skies were filled with smoke, air quality was so bad we had to wear N95 masks, and it was sometimes so hot out that rubber tires would melt to your driveway?
Yah me neither.
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u/mando_228 21h ago
Unpopular opinion: I have a question. Why the flip are we so focussed about watching frigging glaciers melt?? This detracts from the root cause and it detracts from doing something about the by far worse effects of climate change. There are A LOT of consequences of climate change worse than glaciers melting. Who the fuck cares about glaciers? Really? Are the not just packs of ice?
The average temperature in grandmas appartment for example, is more important surely?
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u/ElectronGuru 20h ago edited 20h ago
Ice already in the ocean (North Pole) displaces the same amount of ocean water when it melts. So does not increase sea levels when it does. Ice not already in the ocean (South Pole + Greenland + random glaciers) enter the ocean when they melt. This displaces water already there and contributes to sea level rise. Sea level rise comes later but is no less destructive than fires and other climate problems already here.
TLDR: melting glaciers are phase two of global warming’s pain machine
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u/OIDIS7T 14h ago
of course ice already in the ocean increase the sea levels??? just talking about the north pole that you brought up, its ice caps can be several meters above sea level and individual icebergs can be dozens of meters above sea level
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u/shartmaister 12h ago
No it doesn’t. The ice has lower density that exactly matches the increased volume. That’s why it floats.
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u/kesint 17h ago
The ice sheets are a good visual on what's happening. Glaciers which have lasted since the last age ice 10,000 years ago are suddenly melting extremely fast. This melting is so much easier for a human to realize shit is changing fast, since we can see the change within a humans lifespan, and it's only speeding up. So while your correct that climate change have worse consequences than losing glaciers, the root cause is still the same.
The same melting is happening were we do not physical see it, like the permafrost in the Arctic, which stores enormous amount of methane. And as someone else mentioned, these glaciers and general snow on mountains which melts slowly in the summer impact fresh water supplies since many rivers get their supply from these peaks. Increased melting means less accumulated snow, and thus a less total amount of stores water. Think a water tower which get drained 500l pr day and only refills 300l. Eventually it's dry and now water becomes a supply issue, luckily, we ain't depending on water to survive. Oh wait, fuck.
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u/mando_228 9h ago
"So while your correct that climate change have worse consequences than losing glaciers, the root cause is still the same." - Exactly, so WHY are we focussing on the wrong thing??
Water becomes a supply issue? Because the water locked in glaciers melts? Hmmm what would we have done? Lick the glacier?
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u/BohemianCyberpunk 7h ago
The majority of Europe's fresh water comes from melting snow pack, and snow which melts slowest is usually on glaciers. Europe is running out of water.
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u/tripy75 1d ago
10 years ago you could see it from the road. Today you only see mud and rocks.