{"id":397180,"date":"2023-08-24T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-24T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=397180"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"Swiss-glaciers-under-threat-again-as-heat-wave-drives-temps-to-record-highs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/Swiss-glaciers-under-threat-again-as-heat-wave-drives-temps-to-record-highs\/","title":{"rendered":"Swiss glaciers under threat again as heat wave drives temps to record highs"},"content":{"rendered":"

GENEVA<\/strong> (AP)\u2014The Swiss weather service said Monday a heat wave has driven the zero-degree Celsius level to its highest altitude since recordings on it in Switzerland began nearly 70 years ago, an ominous new sign for the country\u2019s vaunted glaciers.<\/p>\n

MeteoSwiss says the zero-degree isotherm level reached 5,298 meters (17,381 feet) above sea level over Switzerland overnight Sunday to Monday. All of Switzerland\u2019s snow-capped Alpine peaks\u2014the highest being the 4,634-meter (15,203-foot) Monte Rosa summit\u2014had air temperatures over zero Celsius (32 F) where water freezes to ice, raising prospects of a thaw.<\/p>\n

Even Mont Blanc, Europe\u2019s highest mountain along the Italian-French border at some 4,809 meters (15,800 feet), is affected, the weather agency said based on readings from its weather balloons.<\/p>\n

The new high altitude eclipsed a previous record set in July 2022, a year that experts say was particularly devastating for the glaciers of Switzerland. Readings have been taken on the zero-degree altitude level since 1954.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn exceptionally powerful anticyclone and warm air of subtropical origin are currently ensuring scorching weather over the country,\u201d MeteoSwiss said on its website, adding that many measuring stations in Switzerland have set new temperature records in the second half of August.<\/p>\n

MeteoSwiss meterologist Mikha\u00ebl Schwander said it marked only the third time such readings had been tallied above 5,000 meters\u2014and that the level was generally around 3,500 to 4,000 meters in a typical summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith a zero-degree isotherm far above 5,000m (meters above sea level), all glaciers in the Alps are exposed to melt\u2014up to their highest altitudes,\u201d said Daniel Farinotti, a glaciologist at the federal technical university in Zurich, ETHZ, in an email. \u201cSuch events are rare and detrimental to the glaciers\u2019 health, as they live from snow being accumulated at high altitudes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf such conditions persist in the longer term, glaciers are set to be lost irreversibly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A Swiss study last year found that the country\u2019s 1,400-odd glaciers\u2014the most in Europe\u2014had lost more than half their total volume since the early 1930s, including a 12-percent decline over the previous six years alone.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A team member of Swiss Federal Institute of Technology glaciologist and head of the Swiss measurement network \u2018Glamos\u2019, Matthias Huss, passes the Rhone Glacier covered by sheets near Goms, Switzerland, on June 16, 2023.<\/p>\n

-AP
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GENEVA (AP)\u2014The Swiss weather service said Monday a heat wave has driven the zero-degree Celsius…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-397180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397180\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}