Glaciers

Swiss glaciers are receding again after 2 punishing years and despite a good start to 2024

Experts say the volume of Switzerland’s glaciers shrank again this summer and compounded the negative impact of climate change after a devastating two-year run that depleted the ice by more than 10%.

Police in Iceland call off search at ice cave collapse that killed 1 man, saying no one is missing

Picturesque glacier releases water down a river in Alaska. More than 100 homes are damaged

Melting of Alaska’s Juneau icefield accelerates, losing snow nearly 5 times faster than in the 1980s

Pakistani province issues a flood alert and warns of a heavy loss of life from glacial melting

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Scientists say melting Antarctic iceberg poses major sea level threat

An Antarctic glacier could cause global sea levels to rise to devastating levels if it collapses, a team of scientists from the UK and US have found. New findings from the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration reveal the Thwaites Glacier is melting faster than previously thought, prompting urgent calls for preventative action. (AP video/Mustakim Hasnath, Production: Mustakim Hasnath)

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Warm weather melts Italian alpine glaciers despite abundant spring snowfall

Melting of Alaska’s Juneau icefield accelerates

Climate change threatens Bolivian ‘cholitas’ livelihood

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Austria likely to be largely ice-free within 45 years as glaciers recede quickly, experts say

Experts say Austrian glaciers receded last year at a rapid pace and the Alpine country is likely to be largely ice-free in 40 to 45 years.

Peru lost more than half of its glacier surface in just over half a century, scientists say

Peruvian scientists say Peru has lost more than half of its glacier surface in the last six decades due to climate change.

France’s Macron says melting glaciers are ‘an unprecedented challenge for humanity’

French President Emmanuel Macron says melting glaciers pose “an unprecedented challenge for humanity.” He spoke on Friday as a three-day global summit on glaciers and poles wrapped up in Paris.

Chile shuts down a popular glacier, sparking debate over climate change and adventure sports

Chile’s National Forestry Corporation has permanently closed a popular glacier, sparking outrage from adventurers and local guides.

Alpine skiing World Cup faces questions from climate activists over racing on glaciers in October

The Austrian resort of Soelden has hosted the first event of the Alpine skiing World Cup season for the 30th time with giant slalom races in late October.

UN chief visits tallest mountains in Nepal and expresses alarm over their melting glaciers

The U.N. chief has toured the highest peaks in Nepal, and says the world should end the fossil fuel age to curb global warming that melts glaciers in the Himalayan mountains. U.N.

Scientists count huge melts in many protective Antarctic ice shelves. Trillions of tons of ice lost.

A new study finds that four dozen Antarctic ice shelves have shrunk by at least 30% since 1997 and 28 of those have lost more than half of their ice in that time.

AP PHOTOS: As Alpine glaciers slowly disappear, new landscapes are appearing in their place

Ski lifts, resorts, cabins and huts dot the landscape — and have done so for decades.

As thaw accelerates, Swiss glaciers have lost 10% of their volume in the past 2 years, experts say

A Swiss Academy of Sciences panel is reporting a dramatic acceleration of glacier melt in the Alpine country, which has lost 10% of its ice volume in just two years after high summer heat and low snow volumes in winter.

AP PHOTOS: In the warming Alps, Austria’s melting glaciers are in their final decades

Andrea Fischer, a glaciologist with the Austrian Academy of Sciences, has witnessed this significant glacier retreat. She and her team measure the ice to understand how climate change affects the glaciers, now and in the future. In the last few years, the Austrian glaciers have started losing mass f

Swiss glacier watcher warns recent heat wave threatens severe melt again this year after record 2022

A top glacier watcher has warned that a warm early summer and a heat wave last week could have caused severe glacier melt across Switzerland, threatening to make 2023 the second-worst year for ice loss after a record thaw last year.

Pope says a revised environmental encyclical will be released Oct. 4, feast of St. Francis of Assisi

Pope Francis is planning to release an update to his landmark 2015 environmental encyclical on Oct. 4. That’s the feast of his nature-loving namesake, St. Francis of Assisi.

Body of an Austrian man believed to have died in 2001 found high in the Alps

Police say a mountain guide has found the remains high in the Austrian Alps of a man believed to have died in an accident on a glacier 22 years ago.

Swiss glaciers under threat again as heat wave drives zero-temperature level to record altitude

The Swiss weather service says 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, a new ominous sign for the country’s vaunted glaciers.

As glaciers melt, a new study seeks protection of ecosystems that emerge in their place

A new scientific study suggests the world should start preparing to protect the ecosystems that emerge from under the disappearing ice, as a warming planet is inevitably causing glaciers to melt.

After a glacial dam outburst destroyed homes in Alaska, a look at the risks of melting ice masses

Residents in Alaska’s capital city have lived with periodic glacial dam outbursts for more than a decade. But the latest flood, which destroyed at least two homes over the weekend, was surprising for how quickly the water moved.

Bursting ice dam in Alaska highlights risks of glacial flooding around the globe

The destruction that resulted from a glacial dam bursting in Alaska’s capital highlights the danger such flooding poses around the world.

Even frozen Antarctica is being walloped by climate extremes, scientists find

A new study concludes that Antarctica is already being and will continue to be affected by more frequent and severe extreme weather events, a known byproduct of human-caused climate change.

Glacial dam outburst in Alaska’s capital erodes riverbanks, destroys at least 2 buildings

Raging waters from a weekend outburst of water from a glacier-dammed lake destroyed at least two buildings and damaged others before floodwaters receded in Alaska’s capital city of Juneau.

Crammed with tourists, Alaska’s capital wonders what will happen as its magnificent glacier recedes

A record number of cruise passengers are expected this year in Alaska’s capital, drawn by wonders such as the long-retreating Mendenhall Glacier. So many people are expected that the city’s immediate concern is how to manage them all.

DNA tests confirm the body found on a Swiss glacier is of a German mountaineer missing since 1986

Police in southwestern Switzerland say that DNA tests have confirmed that the body recently found on a glacier southeast of the famed Matterhorn peak is that of a German mountaineer who disappeared 37 years ago.

AP PHOTOS: To save Alpine glaciers, Swiss team monitors the escalating melt

Some stretches of mountain once covered with the grayish blue of glaciers are now mostly shrouded by white covers. Chunks of ice floating in a nearby lake are also conserved. The sheets are effective locally but are just a small-scale solution.

Himalayan glaciers could lose 80% of their volume if global warming isn’t controlled, study finds

A report from a Nepal-based research organization finds that water security for nearly 2 billion people downstream from the Hindu Kush Himalayan ranges will likely be threatened this century if global warming is not controlled.

Stragglers pack up as Swiss village is evacuated under rockslide threat

Erosion over generations has left the bald-faced mountainside white, gray and orange with exposed rock and earth, and a few boulders have already made their way onto the edge of the village in the verdant valley. One sat menacingly next to a small wood cabin.

Swiss villagers told to evacuate over Alpine rockslide alert

The centuries-old village straddles German- and Romansch-speaking parts of the eastern Graubunden region, sitting southwest of Davos at an altitude of about 1,150 meters (about 3,800 feet). Today it has under 100 residents.

Warming-stoked tides eating huge holes in Greenland glacier

The rapid melt seen in this study was in the far northwest of Greenland on Petermann Glacier. If it is happening in the rest of Greenland and the even bigger Antarctic ice sheet, then global ice loss and the sea level rise could jump as much as twice as fast as previously thought, according to the s