Even Highest Altitude European Glaciers Can't Escape This Summer's Heat

A Swiss glacier with blankets over it in a last ditch effort
to slow melting during heat waves. A new heat wave is
breaking records for the highest elevation of above
freezing air over Europe. 

 Swiss meteorologists said that Monday night, you had to reach an elevation of 17,381 feet before you encountered subfreezing air. below 32 degrees, or 0 degrees Celsius. 

That's the highest elevation on record in which above freezing air reached. 

That sounds esoteric, until you consider that Switzerland's vaunted glaciers are all below that elevation, subjecting even the highest glaciers to melting. 

According to the Associated Press:

"MeteoSwiss meteorologist Michael Schwander said it marked only the third time such readings had been tallied above 5,000 meters (16,404 feet) - and that the level was generally around 3,500 (11,483 feet) to 4,000 meters (13,123 feet) in a typical summer. 

'With a zero degree far above 5,000 meters, all glaciers in the Alps are exposed to melt - up to the highest altitudes,' said Daniel Farinotti, a glaciologist at the federal technical university in Zurich, ETHZ in an email. 'Such events are rare and detrimental to the glaciers' health, as they live from snow being accumulated at high altitudes.'

'If such conditions persist in the longer term, glaciers are set to be lost irreversibly,' he said."

Switzerland has about 1,400 glaciers, the most in Europe. They've lost at least half of their total volume since the early 1930s. They've lost 12 percent of their volume in just the past six years, the Associated Press reports.

The high elevations hot spell in Switzerland is part of an intense heat wave now hitting much of Europe. It's being caused by a "heat dome," which is intense area of oddly warm high pressure sitting over parts of the continent. A similar heat dome is afflicting the central United States with record heat. 

In France, people are being told to avoid high elevations in the Alps, because melting ice is opening new crevices in glaciers and causing rock falls. 

Four regions in France are under a rare red alert, which allows local officials to cancel outdoor events and take other measures to protect people from the dangerous heat.

The most tragic news from the European heat wave so far comes from Greece, where 18 charred bodies were found after a wildfire made possible by the record heat swept through. The dead were believed to be migrants. 

For once, we in Vermont are lucking out with the weather.  The heat in the Midwest and Plains is not forecast to spread east. Our temperatures should remain near or a little cooler than normal for at least the next week. 

Climate change, acting in concert with El Nino, has caused numerous record heat waves acros s the world since June. The month of July was the hottest on record for the world as a whole. Many climatologists expect August to be the world's hottest on record, too.