Climate Change MIGHT Have Contributed To Massive Swiss Glacial Collapse; Is Causing Other Glacier Crises

A massive avalanche of ice, rocks and other glacial
debris roads down the slopes  in the Swiss Alps in 
late May, ultimately burying most of a village.
Many scientists think climate change 
contributed to the massive collapse. 

 You might have seen dramatic video on the news at the end of May of what appears to be an entire mountain crashing down on what was a tiny, picturesque Swiss village, burying it in mud, rocks debris and water.  

What hit was a glacial collapse in the Swiss Alps.

It began when a rock slope above the glacier began to crack and fall apart, depositing rocks atop the glacier.  

Swiss emergency officials noticed this development unfolding. It alarmed them enough to evacuate Blatton, the village that was eventually 90 percent buried by the debris flow.

On May 28, either the glacier collapsed under the weight of the rocks accumulating on top of it, or more of the rocks above it suddenly slid, causing a chain reaction that sent new rocks, the accumulated rocks and most of the glacier roaring down the mountainside, mostly burying the village, 

Since Blatton had been evacuated ahead of the calamity, there is only one reported casualty.  A 64-year-old man was reported to be in the village when the glacier collapsed. 

The collapsed glacier dammed a river on the valley floor, forming a lake that flooded most of the houses that weren't directly hit by the glacier and landslide. Worries are growing the new lake will bust through the glacial debris, causing a flash flood downstream. 

The astounding glacial collapse set off debate as to whether and to what extent climate change caused or contributed to the calamity. 

 Per the Washington Post:

"Experts are mixed in their views over whether the collapse was caused by climate change. Christophe Lambiel, a geologist a the University of Lausanne, told Switzerland's national broadcaster that the glacier had previously been supported by a high rock face encased in permafrost, which had degraded over the past 10 to 15 years, putting pressure on the glacier.

He said climate change 'probably' played some role in the collapse."

Common Dreams also reports many climatologist and glaciologists suspect climate change played a role, and fear similar events loom in the future: 

"Mathieu Morlighem, a glaciologist at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, told ABC News that permafrost thaw under and along the sidewalls surrounding the glacier likely caused the collapse.

'What happened to the Birch Glacier is what we would expect from rising temperatures in the Alps and elsewhere, he explained. 'I think we can expect more events like this in the future.'"

More study is going to be needed to what extent climate change influenced the May glacial collapse in Switzerland.

But melting glaciers and permafrost in the mountains and Arctic regions are threatening new disasters. 

For instance, melt water can collect behind ice in a glacier, then suddenly break through, causing catastrophic downstream floods. That happened last summer in Juneau, Alaska, when a so called "glacial lake" formed behind ice on a glacier

That lake eventually abruptly broke through, causing a record-setting flood along the Mendenhall River, flooding at least 300 homes.

These so-called outburst floods have always occurred. But these  outburst floods are an increasing threat in Alaska, the Andes, Himalayas, European Alps, Iceland and Alaska due to the added melting brought on by climate change. 

Mountain  glaciers also supply critical water supplies for as many as 2 billion people worldwide. Over the course of centuries, bits of glaciers would melt in the summer, only to start building back up in the winter. 

Now, they're melting faster than they can rejuvenate. Which is why you get these glacial collapses and glacier outbursts. There's just too much water and melting all at once. 

Eventually, though, the glaciers will disappear, erasing sources of drinking water and especially agricultural irrigation.

This is all just one more worry created by climate change.  If mountain glaciers become unstable, so do regional societies, and public safety.  Every time I turn around, it seems, I notice another negative effect of climate change.  

VIDEO

Worth seeing again as it's so spectacularly awful. Video shows the mass of rock, ice and other debris roaring down the slopes of the Swiss Alps in late May. Click on this link to view, or if you see the the image below, click on that.

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.

 

Europe Having At Least A Lousy Weather Summer As United States And Canada

Large swaths of Greece, especially the island Rhodes,
are on fire after a persistent, record breaking heatwave

 You might have seen glimpses of extreme weather news from Europe in between reports of relentless heat waves in some parts of the United States and extreme floods and storms in other sections of America.   

To confirm, yes, it's a weather summer from hell in much of Europe, too. 

It's kind of the same story as in the United States. Horrible heat and wildfires in the south, storms just a little further north and east. 

Let's take a miserable European tour here:

GREECE 

A long heat wave in Greece has led to scary wildfires, especially on the islands of Rhodes and Corfu. 

At least 19,000 residents and tourists fled Rhodes as the wildfires tour through hotels and resorts on the island.

As NPR reports: 

"The fires struck during peak tourist season in Greece. And while visitors flock to the islands from all over the world, Corfu and Rhodes are especially popular with people from the United Kingdom."

Up to 10,000 British tourists are on Rhodes and many are still trying to get out of the country, but getting to the airport is difficult, never mind finding a flight out. 

NPR again: 

"Some tourists say they had to walk for miles in the heat to reach safety, and local TV footage shows crowds of people walking beneath orange, smoke-filled skies and lying on mattresses in makeshift shelters."

I was also more than a little puzzled when a couple airlines were still flying tourists into Rhodes while tourists who were already there were fleeing fires. 

ITALY 

Heat and powerful storms are the story in Italy.

The southern part of the nation sweltered in record heat, and at least four died in the resulting wildfires. 

Temperatures reached as high as 117 degrees in Sicily. Rome reached 107 degrees, its hottest reading on record for any date. 

Huge hailstones pelted northern Italy. 

About 40 wildfires broke out in Sicily.  The airport in Palermo was temporarily closed because of the nearby fires but has since reopened. 

The heat has turned the Mediterranean Sea into something of a hot tub.  The average surface temperature of the sea reached 83.12 degrees (28.4 C) this week, an all time record high. 

In northern Italy, the hot temperatures interacting with cooler air to the north set off severe thunderstorms, at least one tornado, microbursts and tennis ball sized hail or bigger. One hail stone recovered in northern Italy was 7.89 inches in diameter, the largest hail stone on record for the entire continent of Europe. 

SWITZERLAND

An incredible storm hit the city of La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland and its surroundings northwest of Bern. 

The storm packed winds of 135 mph, which is the equivalent of a category 4 hurricane. Video from the city during the storm looked like such a hurricane.  

One person was killed, several were injured and the area suffered widespread damage to homes, businesses and other buildings. 

The storm was an apparent microburst, which a larger version of a thunderstorm microburst. Macrobursts cover an area at least 2.5 miles in diameter. Winds in them can reach 135 mph, so this Swiss event was definitely a very high end version of this phenomenon. 

There might also have been an embedded tornado.