Great article on the accelerating glacier crisis

 

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As Switzerland’s Glaciers Shrink, a Way of Life May Melt Away

"Switzerland has long been considered Europe’s water tower, the place where deep winter snows would accumulate and gently melt through the warmer months, augmenting the trickling runoff from thick glaciers that helped sustain many of Europe’s rivers and its ways of life for centuries.

Today, the Alps are warming about twice as fast as the global average, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In the past two years alone, Swiss glaciers have lost 10 percent of their water volume — as much as melted in the three decades from 1960 to 1990."

There is a lot about the local culture, which includes cheese-making. Hah.

And there's also quite a bit about water.

"The [water] situation is expected to get worse as the glaciers retreat. The country’s biggest glaciers, including the Aletsch and Rhône, are projected to shrink by at least 68 percent by the end of the century.

In anticipation, the Swiss government has quadrupled funding for alpine water projects. In 2022, it approved 40.

Near the village of Jaun, a construction crew was laying pipes to deliver electricity and water from a new cistern to six local farms. In 2022, some families brought their herds of cows down the mountain a month early because of the drought and heat."

Lower Grindelwald Glacier in 1865 (left) and 2019 (right)