The country has lost as much ice in the last two years as it did in the three decades before 1990, researchers said, describing the ice melt as "catastrophic".
I don’t think that the glacier as an intact sheet of ice has value so much as it just is a particularly-visible sign of global warming, because small temperature changes to large masses of ice that are bounded by the melting temperature of water produce large changes to that mass.
They are THE most important source of water during the summer. Their importance cannot be overstated. Switzerland gets 60% of its electricity from hydro power, which from spring to late autumn is glacier melt water. They replenish in winter with snowfall then slowly let the snow melt in summer. Without them we get flooding in spring and drought in autunn. The Rhine and the Po rivers, crucially important to Germany and Italy, are fed by glaciers. Italy’s most productive agricultural areas are watered by the Po river. Switzerland will experience water shortages when the glaciers are gone, something the Swiss cannot fathom, because until now we always had so much water we could waste it and still have more left than we could ever use. And if Switzerland has too little water you can imagine what will happen to Italy and France.
I expect that the ice will still be melting wherever they put it. And according to the article, what they put in its place is snow on crushed rock, so that’ll probably be melting too.
I don’t think that the glacier as an intact sheet of ice has value so much as it just is a particularly-visible sign of global warming, because small temperature changes to large masses of ice that are bounded by the melting temperature of water produce large changes to that mass.
They are THE most important source of water during the summer. Their importance cannot be overstated. Switzerland gets 60% of its electricity from hydro power, which from spring to late autumn is glacier melt water. They replenish in winter with snowfall then slowly let the snow melt in summer. Without them we get flooding in spring and drought in autunn. The Rhine and the Po rivers, crucially important to Germany and Italy, are fed by glaciers. Italy’s most productive agricultural areas are watered by the Po river. Switzerland will experience water shortages when the glaciers are gone, something the Swiss cannot fathom, because until now we always had so much water we could waste it and still have more left than we could ever use. And if Switzerland has too little water you can imagine what will happen to Italy and France.
afaik they are important for the water supply of rivers in spring
I expect that the ice will still be melting wherever they put it. And according to the article, what they put in its place is snow on crushed rock, so that’ll probably be melting too.
The problem is that this melts in a few weeks in spring.
So we get flooding in spring and drought in autumn - instead of a nice steady flow from early spring to late autumn. The glaciers are irreplaceable.