The international consequences of a glacier-free Switzerland.
Switzerland’s glaciers could almost disappear due to global warming. Melting ice in the Alps will have an impact on large rivers in Western Europe – but it won’t stop there.
On the Jungfraujoch pass, nearly 3,500 metres above sea level in the Bernese Alps, Andreas Linsbauer takes a long metal rod and jams it into the fresh snowpack. After four metres, he can’t push any further. He’s hit the hard layer of snow that covers the glacier.
“At first glance I would say the conditions are not so good,” Linsbauer, a glaciologist at the University of Zurich, says. There is usually six to seven metres of fresh snow here at the end of winter.
