Europe stands to lose all but 3% of its alpine glaciers

As little as 110 glaciers could be all that is left in Europe’s alpine regions by the year 2100 if current climate trends continue unabated, new research suggests.

An international study led by ETH Zurich and published in the Nature Climate Change journal has utilised extensive climate data and projected warming levels to calculate how many glaciers will remain across the continent by the end of the century.

The study is aimed at helping to continue raising awareness and to drive policy change both at a government level but also for the tourism industry in countries such as Switzerland, which stand to be heavily impacted by potential glacier loss.

The study looked at a number of scenarios and coined the worrying term ‘Peak Glacier Extinction’, which refers to when annual glacier loss hits its peak – which is estimated to occur as early as 2033 but may be closer to 2041.

With current climate policies steering Europe on a course of a 2.7 degree Celsius temperature rise, only 110 glaciers would be left in Central Europe by 2100 – only 3% of today’s total.

On a worse-case scenario forecasting a temperature rise of four degrees, only 20 glaciers would remain. Researchers said even the powerful and extensive Rhone Glacier would shrink to “tiny remnants of ice or disappear completely”.

Under this scenario, the extensive Aletsch Glacier in the Swiss Bernese Alps, which stretches up to 23 kilometres and nearly a kilometre thick in some parts, would fragment into several smaller parts.

Switzerland was a primary focus point for the study, drawing off recently released data showing that between 1973 and 2016, the country lost more than 1,000 glaciers in its own right.

For the first time, the study was also able to estimate how many glaciers around the world would disappear worldwide each year and how many are likely to remain until the end of the century.

“For the first time, we’ve put years on when every single glacier on Earth will disappear,” says lead author Lander Van Tricht.

The study also found that glaciers at lower elevations or those at low latitudes are particularly vulnerable, with more than half expected to disappear in the next two decades. Worldwide, there is no region where glacier numbers are not declining.