Rhone Glacier, Switzerland (AP) – drip, drip. Megra, meager.
This is the sound of water leaking from a Swiss river They monitor the signs of continuing to decline By the majestic masses of ice under the heat of global warming.
In recent years, ice scientists such as Matthias House from the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, known as Ehthz, and others have turned into exciting measures to help protect iceotilities such as Ron iceberg, which feeds on the same name that extends across Switzerland and France.
One of these desperate steps includes the use of giant sheets to cover ice, such as blankets to slow down.
Switzerland is the ice capital in the continental Europe, where it provides about 1,400 drinking water, and irrigation of agricultural lands in many parts of Europe, including the country of French wine, and the electrical energy that generates most of the country in the country.
The number was diminished. The Alps has already lost up to 1,000 small ice rivers, and the greatest areas at increasingly at risk.
Drilling in the ice rivers to track what is happening inside
Huss Associated Press hosted to visit the sprawling iceberg this month, where he made his first monitoring task as the summer temperatures accelerate the melting of the ice. Under normal circumstances, glaciers can be renewed in the winter, but climate change threatens this.
“I always say that the ice rivers are the ambassadors of climate change because they can spread this message in a very understandable manner,” said Hos. “It also causes good feelings because the ice rivers are beautiful. We know them from our holidays.”
The vast extension of the blue, gray and white ice is full of cracks and grooves, and Hus says that its division in the Swiss Glamos Glacier monitoring group has monitored a new phenomenon in Switzerland: there are holes that appear under the surface sometimes expand sometimes over the ice over the crumbs.
Huss Auger is used to withstand ice, and send lukewarm chips to the top as if it was from the sticking fountain. It is part of a process that includes the use of risks and columns to track ice loss from fusion.
A better understanding of ice melting
Huss monitors melting not only on top but also from the base of ice rivers.
“The ice rivers usually dissolve from the top due to the warm air, due to its radiation from the sun. But in recent years we have realized in many sites that there is a fundamental melting of the bottom,” said House. “If there are some channels in the ice through which the air is circulated, this can stimulate large holes under the ice.”
The Alps was covered with ice 20,000 years ago, but no longer. It is the same story elsewhere. Experts have warned that about two thirds of the ice rivers in the world were appointed It disappears by the end of this century
The obsession says that only humans can help save them.
He said: “It is difficult to save this very ice mountain because it can only be saved – or at least to decline is slower – by dropping carbon dioxide emissions.” “But everyone can contribute alone to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to the maximum extent.”
He added: “These ice rivers will not help immediately, but it will help all ice rivers in the long run.” “This is the important thing that we should think if we see this ice melting this great decline – it’s time to work now.”
The anonymous is allowed, and a village is destroyed
The concerns related to the ice rivers in Switzerland were recently after the southwestern village of Blatin, which was placed near the iceberg It was largely destroyed by a slice of rocks and ice ice in May. The village was evacuated before the slide, which covered dozens of houses and buildings and left only a few visible homes.
A data review showed that the Persh ice river was rare in that it was advancing while most of the ice rivers were receding. It has increased in recent years, to the point that it was flowing at a speed of 10 meters (about 30 feet) a day shortly before the collapse – a rate called “completely not sustainable”.
Haws said that the landslide had caused the accumulation of rocks on the iceberg, although it also described Bersh as a “introduction.”
House says that the main meals of the Brick ice collapse is that “unexpected things happen.”
“If you asked me, like three weeks, no one had guessed that the entire village would be destroyed,” he said. “I think this is the main lesson to be learned, and that we need to be prepared.”
___
AP Jamey Keaten journalist in Geneva contributed to this report.
___
The Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receive financial support from many private institutions. AP is the only one responsible for all content. Look for AP Standards To work with charitable works, a list of supporters and coverage areas in AP.org.
